How to Woo
by HOLLOWpoint headers
Summary: It's 7th year and James is FINALLY going to convince his beloved redhead to date him. With the help of his trustworthy Marauders and "The Impossibly Long List for Getting Lily Evans to Date James Potter" of course!
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note:

I'm not the best at updating. So I apologize in advance. The good news is that I have several chapters written already so it shouldn't be a huge wait. However, because I'm a busy 18-year-old girl, I really can't promise anything more than an update once a month. If that's a huge problem, you may want to rethink starting this story. On the other hand, I personally think it's really good so you should definitely read it. This story has been my brain child for almost 2 years now so I hope you enjoy!

So without further ado, I present: "How to Woo" (title pending possible alteration)

Ch. 1 Your Type

I always loved Lily. That much was an understood fact. The grass is green, the sky is blue, James Potter is in love with Lily Evans. Just as potions class is _always_ awful, I _always_ loved Lily. It just took me until I was eleven to discover that I loved her, and much longer to figure out how to love her.

Unfortunately, eleven-year-old boys show their attraction in odd ways; they tease the object of their attraction. My closest friends and I, the Marauders, used her as our main target for our many pranks. But we didn't pull just any pranks, we went to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, so any prank we pulled was infinitely more extravagant and destructive then any prank a Muggle could pull.

The Marauders and I were popular; there wasn't a single soul in Hogwarts who didn't laugh at our pranks. We were always the center of attention and when we weren't around it just wasn't as good a time. Even the older students appreciated our jokes and treated us as equals, probably because they didn't want to end up at the butt end of one of our pranks; we didn't discriminate based on age. This unfortunately swelled my young ego so that I simply assumed Lily Evans loved me back because I was _James Potter_, one of the Marauders and the most popular boy at Hogwarts. I was so cocky as to believe that she was in denial for six years, a foolish mistake on my part. It never occurred to me that I might not one day convince Lily Evans to return my love.

Reality finally settled in on July 21st of the summer before my seventh year, the day my father died. All my foolish self-obsession was ended when I finally realized that life wouldn't be served to me on a silver platter. It struck me then that if Lily Evans had told me seventeen thousand six hundred and ninety-two and a half times that she didn't love me, she _probably_ wasn't lying.

I remember the funeral vividly. There were many Aurors there, friends of my father. He had died in the line of duty, fighting a rising group of dark wizards called the Death Eaters. The wake had been closed coffin.

A yellow rose with a single thin bow of black ribbon hung listlessly from each person's hands. My sweet mother was crying silently into her handkerchief and she held my shoulder tightly. I didn't cry; I wanted to be strong for my mother. My cousin, Antoinette sang a compelling and almost eerie hymn in her high, sweet, angelic voice. She was in my year at Hogwarts and has remained one of my closest friends since childhood.

After the ceremony it was Antoinette who found me sitting in the childhood tree fort my father and I had built together—Muggle style—with just a little magic to make it warm in the winter. She didn't say anything to me but she didn't need to. She sat on the grimy, weatherworn plywood floor next to me, ruining her pretty silk dress, and held me, pulling my head onto her shoulder and quietly stroking my unruly hair. We sat together like that till the sun set and I knew my mother would be looking for me. I never did cry for my father; I didn't feel the need.

Antoinette, affectionately known as Toinette, is best friends with Lily and has always supported me in my attempts to win Lily over. She is also the girlfriend of my closest friend and fellow Marauder, Sirius. Lightly put—and Lily would certainly word this differently—Sirius was a bit careless with girls' hearts for most of his life. Regardless, he dated almost every girl in the school, with a few exceptions (obviously including my Lily), and they all seemed to believe that he was truly in love with them and wouldn't break their heart as he had so many girls' before. You may call him heartless but it's not like every girl wasn't forewarned every time he "ended" the relationship with some girl or other.

He had a hell of a time when he fell for Antoinette though. She wouldn't take any of his crap and it took him a year (as opposed to my seven thus far with Lily) to convince her he wasn't just screwing around. Of course she had the assurance that no friend of mine would ever hurt my favorite cousin. She was the first girl he dated for longer then a month. I told them they would have to get married one day and I made Sirius promise I'd be the best man and the godfather of their first-born.

Anyway, with my father's death and my realization of Lily's lack of loving feelings toward me weighing heavily on my mind, I returned to Hogwarts. The first time I saw her again I completely forgot my previous resolution and returned briefly to my old antics.

"I dreamed about you again," I told my angel, as I sat down besides her, completely ignoring the Sorting Ceremony beginning behind me.

"Is that so?" More like my demon, she tortured me endlessly. She turned her head to look vehemently towards the front of the hall and even more vehemently away from me.

"Mmm, hmm," I followed, pretending not to notice her disinterest. "You didn't hate me."

"That's nice." Her voice was politely distant; she was barely listening, toning me out within the applause as a pale, blonde and curly haired girl was sorted into Ravenclaw.

"Don't you want to hear about it?" I whined, hating her for making me work so hard but loving her for being so impeccably Lily.

"Not really." How could she keep missing how bad it hurt? The curt dismissals, the abrupt interruptions corroded my very soul but I still kept chugging down the burning, acidic gulps.

"How come?" Maybe I'd get a real answer for once…

"How come _you_ won't leave me alone?" She finally looked at me; I forgot to open my mouth to speak when I saw those eyes.

"How come you won't go out with me?"

She turned back towards the front, avoiding my gaze again. "That's none of your business."

"Oh come on Lily," I begged, so easily frustrated. "Just answer the question. Besides, if it's anyone's business I'd definitely say it's mine, as I'm the guy you keep rejecting." I carefully kept my tone casual and as un-hurt as I could manage.

She frowned in irritation, calculating how to get me to shut up I assume. "You aren't my type." It seems she decided on the truth.

"Then what _is_ your type?" I was hopeful; I could be anything for her. Just then Dumbledore interrupted with his start of the year announcements and I was forced to shut up, at least for a little while.

"So will you tell me what your type is?" I asked Lily later as I dug into the treacle tart, my favorite.

"That's none of your business," she told me again, and this time she was kind of right but I didn't care.

"Well, how can I become your type if you won't tell me what 'your type' is?" I insisted, using air quotes. From across the table I saw Antoinette look anxiously at me. She clearly saw Lily's rising temper even if I chose to ignore it.

"Because I don't want you to be my type, okay?" Lily responded, her eyes flashing. Antoinette almost said something but she held back.

"No," I shook my head ruefully, unfortunately making her even more furious. "That's not okay. You see, I have a slight problem; I'm in love with you. And if you won't let me be your type then it'll never work out and then I'll be damned to eternal suffering." I was a bit melodramatic. Honest, but melodramatic.

"James," Lily glared at me as forcefully as she could. I was too deliriously happy that she'd called me by my first name to notice. "You are not my type, and you will never be my type. Even if you were, I'd probably still hate you as much as ever so would you please leave me alone?"

I must have done a good job at hiding the feeling like a knife in my gut because her expression didn't soften a bit. "Just let me try?" I begged. "Just tell me what your type is and I'll try to be that. If I fail, then so be it, and I'll be right where I am now. If I succeed then I'll be the happiest man alive." I held my breath.

Lily glared at me for a moment. I loved watching her think, seeing her calculating look as she decided on the best way to get me to leave her alone. "Fine, I'll tell you," she finally said, giving in. She grimaced at my look of sudden elation and complete joy. It went against the grain for her to make me happy. "But not now." She had to deter my happiness somewhat. "After the feast."

"Do you promise?" I wasn't taking any chances.

"Yes," she sighed in exasperation. "I promise."

"You promise what?" I knew I was really starting to bug her but I desperately needed it to work.

She glared daggers at me. "James," she warned. I kept my face patiently waiting. "I promise to tell you what my type is later tonight," she hissed at me. I swear I could feel icicles forming on the ends of my hair.

Those were the last words she spoke to me at that meal, and I didn't try to get her to talk to me either. I didn't want to push my luck. She had a pleasant but boring conversation about N.E.W.T.S. with Remus and I laughed with Toinette about anything that came to mind, mainly the most recent family spat over some foolish and insulting words passed after too much alcohol; the usual.

At the end of the meal I was just about to stand up, laughing as Toinette grabbed another brownie (she was still eating non stop back then), when Dumbledore called us to attention. "I have one last thing that I forgot to mention earlier," he informed us, "I'd like to introduce to the school, our two Heads for the year; they know who they are." I smiled to myself, "Miss Lily Evans," polite applause as she stood and beamed about the hall, "and Mr. James Potter." The hall was silent as I stood and then broke out into wild cheers and applause. I laughed aloud at my overly enthusiastic welcome but my smile froze when I saw Lily's incredulous and fuming expression.

Once the clapping and laughter died down Dumbledore spoke again. "I'd like to speak to the Heads now and I bid the rest of you a very good night's sleep."

As benches scraped back and first years stared openly at us, Lily and I made our way up to the Headmaster. She kept a few steps ahead of me and didn't even acknowledge that I was behind her.

"Lily, James," Dumbledore smiled warmly upon us. "Come, come. Follow me." He led us through a small door behind the teacher's table into a series of dark passageways. I'd been through them before of course, due to my many nighttime wanderings, but I was reasonably sure Lily hadn't. "I want to show you two your private rooms, made just for the Heads. They're particularly suited to the two of you. I think you'll like them."

We approached an aging portrait of a slim Elizabethan woman in a fashionable (in that time period) ball gown. "This is Rosalie," Dumbledore gestured to the woman. "How are you today, madam," he addressed the lovely, brunette woman in the painting.

"Quite well, Headmaster. And you?" she responded with impeccable pronunciation and a demure smile.

"Positively dapper, thank you," responded Dumbledore with no outward signs of noticing his unique vocabulary. "These are our new Heads, Miss Lily Evans and Mr. James Potter."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Rosalie said.

"The pleasure's all mine," I told her with a slight bow. Rosalie giggled, Lily glowered, Dumbledore grinned.

"The password is 'armada'. I'll leave you two to settle down in peace. The house elves unpacked for you," he told us as the portrait swung forward. "Oh," he paused before he walked away, "And don't bother giving the password to anyone else. Rosalie will only open for the two of you and myself or Professor McGonagall. The password is just an extra security precaution against Polyjuice potions and such."

Without a glance back at the Headmaster I led the way into the Head's Wing. I could feel Lily glaring at my back. The main room was rather like the Gryffindor common room except a bit smaller and much more personal. There were separate desks for Lily and me, stocked with parchment, ink and quills. Directly across the room was a door that, on further investigation, opened to reveal a gleaming bathroom of polished marble and a huge bathtub/hot tub that resembled the one in the Prefect's bathroom with some thirty different taps. (I was never a prefect but I blackmailed Remus to tell me the password once.)

My room was perfect for me. I walked through it slowly, touching everything briefly with my fingertips. There was a massive four-poster bed, with tons of pillows like my bed back in the Gryffindor dorms, dominating a large portion of the space, as well as my trunk at the foot of my bed with a quilt draped over it and a dresser against the opposite wall. A small piano sat in the corner. I didn't approach it right away, however, knowing that I wouldn't be able to resist spending half the night at it if I did. There were Quiddich posters up on the walls, a special stand just for my broom in the corner, and, most importantly of all, a picture on my nightstand of Lily and Toinette laughing together from the end of last year. They weren't looking at the camera, because otherwise Lily would have been scowling, but just smiling together. It was my favorite picture, of my two favorite people. I held it gently in my hands and sunk onto my bed, gazing at it.

A cough interrupted my thoughts. "Excuse me," said a portrait of an old, wrinkled wizard in a dark corner of my room. I hadn't noticed the drab, gray-blue canvas before. "The Headmaster would like me to inquire if you are in need of anything and if the rooms are to your liking."

"Oh yes," I set the picture frame down too rapidly, cringing as it made a loud bang. "Yes, tell him I'm quite comfortable. If you don't mind," I added.

The man smiled at my politeness; my charm worked on everyone, almost. "Yes I will," he answered with a nod. "Just so you know, I'm a messenger from the Headmaster to yourself to let you know of any emergency. I'll spend most of my time in the Headmaster's office. You're best off not hearing from me. I'll hopefully not be in touch." He nodded again and then disappeared.

"Odd little man," I murmured to my self. I gave the photograph one last longing glance and walked from the room, rubbing away the ceaseless disappointment my love for Lily entitled and the start of a headache that tended to accompany it.

Lily's door was adjacent on the other side of the room. She was gazing out of her huge bay window at the lake, clearly lost in thought. I knocked lightly on the doorframe, looking around at the French style furniture that looked as though it belonged in Versailles. She spun around quickly, her eyes flashing when she saw me. She stormed across the room, her nose flaring in a most terrifying manner, and slammed the door in my face.

I stood quite still for a moment, surprised the door hadn't hit me and broken my nose. I didn't really care either way; it was already slightly crooked from being hit by multiple Bludgers. I knocked again on her door.

No answer.

I knocked harder.

No answer.

I pounded. "Lily. Come on Lily. I don't even know what I did, _this time_."

No answer. I slouched against the door. "You can't avoid me forever," I told her. "We have to patrol the halls together, you know."

At that the door opened. I almost fell over. She glared at me for a moment, her cheeks hollow as though she was sucking on a lemon. I scrambled to my feet, hopeful. Then she slammed the door in my face again. This time it did hit my nose, but not hard enough to break it. It was bleeding and would just be sore for weeks.

"Okay, Lily, look." I called through the door, pinching my nose to stop the blood flow, almost laughing at my nasal voice. "I apologize most earnestly for whatever I've done to get you so angry. I'm sorry this is such a bad apology but I really don't know what I did."

She opened the door again, looking, if possible, even angrier. Her expression softened, however, when she saw the blood on my face and hand. She seemed to struggle with herself for a moment, but compassion won. I shuddered to think what would have happened if it hadn't.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, looking down at her feet. She disappeared into her room for a moment and then returned with a handkerchief, which she handed to me.

"It's quite alright," I told her, rejoicing at her apologetic smile. "Will you please tell me what I've done?"

Her mouth twitched into a cynical, self-deprecating smirk. "Sit down," she told me with a sigh, gesturing to one of the couches. I sat slowly. She sat beside me but with about a foot of space between us.

She looked at me for a long minute, weighing different explanations and predicting my reactions. Finally she spoke, slowly and undecided in tone. "I was angry, because you're Head Boy." She held up her hand to cut off my response. "You're everywhere," she explained. "It felt like you were following me, showing up everywhere I went. You're already in _all_ of my classes."

I cringed at that; I had stolen her timetable from last year so I could request all the same classes. "I was absurdly selfish," she admitted, "I thought you'd become Head Boy just so you could harass me more." I was staring at her, my face shocked and uncomprehending. "I'm usually not this stupid," she added.

I came to myself at that. "You're not stupid," I told her.

She blushed. "You aren't angry?" she sounded like she couldn't decide to be relieved or wary.

"I couldn't be angry with you," I told her honestly. She blushed again. "But you do need to tell me what your type is." I reminded her.

"Oh yeah," her tone was dark and I was afraid we'd lost this brief, rather pleasant, moment. "My type," she twisted a piece of her beautiful auburn hair between her fingers. I stared, transfixed.

"Yup." I turned to face her on the couch and sat with my legs criss-crossed, perching my chin on my fists, the very picture of attentiveness. Lily smiled a little at me, a golden moment I tucked away in my mind to cherish later.

"No mocking me," she warned.

I made a hand motion of zipping my lips and she rolled her eyes in response.

"I guess I just like guys who are considerate," she said, glancing up at me. "I like it when someone's really old fashioned, the girl never asks a guy out, he buys a corsage for her when they go out on a fancy date, he carries her books for her and escorts her from class to class." I absorbed every detail word for word. "I want a guy who will make me chicken soup when I have a cold, and if I sneeze he'll get all nervous and ask if I'm getting the flu." She was smiling slightly now. I had to look away or else I would have gotten lost in gazing at her perfection and forget to breathe, or worse, forget to listen and memorize.

"I want him to be okay with meeting my family, I want him to be a musician." I was instantly thankful to my mother for forcing me to take piano lessons when I was younger; though I grew to like it I hated learning a 'girl instrument' at first. "I want a guy who's athletic and not too obsessed with himself." She shot me an accusing look, though I chose to keep my face completely innocent. "I want him to make me feel special, but not crowd me so much that I can't have my own life. He has to be thankful for me, to make me feel appreciated. I hate typical terms of endearment like baby or honey, I want him to call me—" she stopped, realizing whom she was talking to.

"What?" I encouraged.

She blushed, looking at me through her eyelashes. I could barely stand being so close to her but not allowed to grab her and kiss her when she looked at me like that. "I would want him to call me 'lady'," she admitted in a half-whisper, turning almost the color of her hair. I realized we were unknowingly leaning towards each other.

"Lady," I echoed. Then I just stared at her, waiting for her to continue.

"He has to have plans for his future," she continued, clearing her throat and sitting back. "He has to know where he wants to go and be determined to get there, and he has to have me planned into that future somewhere," she told me, her face slowly cooling. "And I want it to be a serious relationship. He has to be able to talk about marriage and kids, and he can't try to convince me to have sex before we're married." She blushed again.

I watched her face change color, completely entranced. "Must be hard to find, a guy with all those characteristics."

"Mostly I just find someone with most of the traits I want," she shrugged, "And then hope he changes to fit the rest."

"You should never compromise in love," I told her.

She blushed again, a habit of hers. "And what about you?" she asked me. "What do you want in a girl?"

I deliberated for a moment, and then decided on the truth. "I want a girl with the first name Lily and the last name Potter."

She blushed scarlet yet again. "_That_ must be hard to find," she commented.

"I'll settle for a girl with the first name Lily, and then hope she changes to fit the rest," I answered.

"You should never compromise in love," she echoed my words with an ironic smile.

I raised an eyebrow. "Touché." I let her win that one.

She smiled and stood. "How's the nose?" she asked.

"I'm surprised you care," I said, too quiet for her to hear. I removed the handkerchief and touched my nose gently. "I think it's stopped."

"Well, keep the handkerchief anyway," she said, heading towards her room, "you may still need it." She hesitated at the door. "Goodnight," she told me.

"Night." I stared after her, completely mystified. I fought the sudden dizzy feeling spinning through me and the need to go bang her door down, grab her and snog her senseless. I chuckled to myself at how she would receive that gesture.

I washed my nose off in the bathroom and cleaned her handkerchief. I walked back to my room, dropped onto my bed and fell asleep hours later after much pondering and pleasant daydreams.

A/N: So how'd I do? Please let me know. As I said, updates should be forthcoming in about a month's time.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: So this one took a little over a month but hopefully all my lovely readers are still intersted. For any new readers, thanks for your time and enjoy!

Ch.2

Returning to Hogwarts was like returning to an old habit. After one day I was back to my old routines, old hobbies, but I had to change. I thought long and hard about what Lily had said and determined to be every single thing she had described, even if it meant changing everything about my personality.

I made two lists; one for getting her to date me, and one for once we're dating. Every two weeks I would work on fulfilling one of her criteria. Some things were as easy as breathing where as others took more self control.

_**The Impossibly Long List for Getting Lily Evans to Date James Potter**_

_Act considerate, no hexing people at random (bummer). [September 1__st__-14__th__]_

_Make pranks less hurtful and more entertaining. [September 15__th__-28__th__]_

_Don't ask her out every ten seconds. [September 29__h__- October 12th]_

_Don't act obsessed with myself, very humble. [October 13__th__-26__th__]_

_Watch lots of old movies to learn from "Old fashioned gentlemen". [October 27__th__-November 9__th__]_

_Practice piano A LOT and leave my door open so she can hear me. [November 10__th__-23__rd__]_

_Keep playing Quiddich (easy). [November 24__th__-December 7__th__]_

_Be helpful and carry her books for her. [December 8__th__-21__st__]_

_Frantically ask her if she's sick whenever she sneezes. [December 22__nd__-January 4__th__]_

_Never expect her to ask me out. [January 5__th__-18__th__]_

On January 19th, I'd ask her out… come what may. I haven't dated my second list yet just in case my plans are…delayed.

_**The Equally Impossibly Long List for Getting Lily Evans to Marry James Potter Once They've Started Dating**_

_Buy her a corsage for every date we go on._

___Show small signs of appreciation._

_Call her 'lady'. _

_Give her space and time to spend with her friends._

_Make her chicken soup when she's sick._

_Agree happily to meet her family; invite her to meet mine._

_Tell her how much I love her and how thankful I am for her every day._

_Plan for my future; pick a career path. Include Lily in plans._

_Be willing to and serious when discussing marriage and kids._

_NEVER try for sex before marriage._

I finished my list proudly. Lily had said she wanted a guy who planned for his future and included her in it. I was just that, except my future plans didn't just include her, they were about her. I decided to call each two-week period a step. And I began Step 1 with high hopes, although Sirius was less then pleased.

"You mean when Eugene Marcos walks past us in his newest pair of horned glasses with rhinestones we can't discreetly charm them to grow gradually bigger throughout the day and stay stuck to his face?" he asked me.

I shook my head. "Nope."

"And we can't switch the bullotuber solution in Madame Pomphry's stores with diluted juice from alihosty leaves to drive all the pimply kids temporarily into hysterics?" he insisted.

I shook my head. "Nope."

"Or jinx every Slytherin we see into oblivion?" he was almost in tears now.

I shook my head again. "Nope."

Sirius stared me down. "What about _Snivellus_?" His tone was dark now, as though daring me to refuse.

I started to shake my head. "Well," I gritted my teeth, "I suppose even if we left him alone he'd never stop harassing us, but we have to stop all the public humiliation. No hexing him just because we're bored anymore."

Sirius pouted.

"And we have to make sure Lily doesn't see us," I added.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "And what's this about making pranks funny and not hurtful?" he gestured at step 2. "The hurtful ones are the funniest. Do you remember that girl we had you pretend to date in third year and then we dumped Stinksap—"?

"That was Lily," I reminded him.

"Oh." Pause. "I see your point," he agreed.

"Any other complaints?" I asked him.

"Well, not a complaint," he handed the lists to me, "but why do you have to watch old movies?"

"Lily said she likes guys who are old fashioned, so I'm going to act like an gentleman from," I hesitated, "Well, from a while ago."

Sirius sighed. "Where did I go wrong with you?" he asked.

"When you didn't send me off to another school the first time I ranted at you about my undying love for Lily Evans," I told him.

"Oh. Shucks."

The difficulties began the next day.

I was minding my own business and just walking down the halls with my usual carefree saunter when a very scared, thin, pinched faced, pale, blonde first year boy in a Slytherin uniform walked past me. My wand was already in the air before I remembered my promise. I hesitated and the boy squeaked, hiding behind a big fifth year Hufflepuff girl.

Thinking it in my best interests _not_ to irritate the burly Hufflepuff-think "strong like bull" Russian women-I instantly lowered my wand and chuckled as though I had never intended to throw a bat bogey hex at him. Peter laughed too, as I had known he would, and everyone just thought that all I had intended to do was startle him a bit, keep him on his toes.

But Lily didn't think that.

"How could you scare that poor little boy?" she asked me in an angry whisper during History of Magic, next period. I never understood why people bothered to whisper in that class. The wizened old Professor Binns never noticed anything. We could have blasted jazz music and started swing dancing on the desks and he probably wouldn't have noticed [I made a mental note to get Lily to do that with me once we were dating]. "He just got here and already he's being terrorized by none other then the Head Boy him self!" she finished. It only occurred to me later that Lily was probably whispering so that no one would notice that she was talking to me.

"I didn't do anything to him," I protested.

"You scared him out of his wits," Lily shook her head. "You're unbelievable, Potter."

"But Lily," I tried to get her to talk to me but her back was completely turned and she was determinedly not looking at me.

I spent the last of the class repeated the mantra in my head. _Do not jinx undeserving people, do not jinx undeserving people, do not jinx undeserving people…_It didn't work as well as I thought. Unfortunately I believed that everyone in Slytherin was completely deserving of a good hex every now and then to keep them in place. My love for, or more accurately at the time, my obsession with Lily Evans won over however and I refrained from hexing anyone—even Snivellus—for the rest of the two week period.

Regardless of my new unhexing persona, Lily wouldn't talk to me for the duration of those two weeks because she was too angry with me for startling the first year.

On the 14th however, the last day of my No-Hexing step, she did speak to me again. All through lunch I wouldn't leave her alone.

"Lily." I sat down next to her. "Oh Lily dear, darling." I wrapped an arm around her shoulders which she shrugged off. "My Pearl, oh sweet Lilykins." I saw her jaw clench but still she wouldn't talk to me. "Remus, pass the pumpkin juice please." I paused my pleading. "Lillian, my love," I cajoled sweetly, "Please at least look at me." She turned in her seat to glower at me. "That's better. I want to show you something dear Lily. Something you'll just love. Come with me out into the Entrance Hall, love and I'll show you. You'll love it. Lily, Liii-llllyyy."

"Fine," she stood up and stormed out of the Great Hall. I followed gleefully.

"Right here," I crossed the empty hall and opened a broom cupboard.

"I'm not going to snog you Potter," she protested.

"That's not what I'm after at the moment," I said, ushering the first year Slytherin I'd scared out of the broom cupboard. "But if that's where your thoughts are headed," I wiggled my eyebrows suggestively.

But she wasn't listening. "Why did you have that poor boy locked up in a broom cupboard?" Her eyes flashed and her hands clenched into fists.

"Because otherwise he would have run away," I stated the obvious. The boy was shaking slightly as he rubbed his eyes to get used to the light.

"You poor dear," Lily rushed over and pulled him away from me.

"No, no, wait," I grabbed the boy's shoulder. "I locked him up so that you could see me do this." I knelt down on one knee so that my head was level with the boy's. "What's your name?"

"Ch-ch-chris," he stammered. "Chris Smithesson."

"Nice to meet you Chris Smithesson," I held out my hand to him. "I'm James Potter and I'm the Head Boy here at Hogwarts." He nodded. "I'm terribly sorry I scared you in the halls earlier today," I paused, considering. "And then for locking you up in a broom cupboard. It was truly awful of me. I don't know what came over me but I apologize most sincerely to you. Can you ever forgive me?" He grinned and nodded furiously. "I think we were just about made to be friends. I even think you'd look like me a little bit if you got rid of that awful part in your hair." Chris hurriedly swept a hand through his hair in a gesture rather like mine and mussed it up. "Perfect. Well then, why don't you run into the Great Hall and have yourself some dinner," I told him. "Make sure you try the Treacle Tart, it's delicious." I smiled at his retreating back. Then I turned to face Lily. She was crying.

"Lily? Lily, what's wrong?" I rushed towards her but then stopped, knowing she wouldn't take well to being hugged by me. "What did I do?" I asked, standing an awkward one foot away, not sure what exactly to do with myself.

She shook her head. "Not me?" She nodded. "Chris?" my tone was dark and angry. She shook her head again. "Then who?"

"It's just how you, how you," she laughed and cried at the same time and then shook her head. "I mean, you locked the kid up in a broom cupboard just so that I could watch you apologize to him. It's so mean but you didn't mean it to be mean. You're just so stupid. So adorably stupid!"

I was trying to decide if I was more complimented or insulted when she threw her arms around my neck and hugged me. She let go however and ran away after a split second. I stared after her confusedly and rubbed the back of my neck. Shaking my head with a smile, I walked back to the Great Hall to eat.

I _think _Step One was somewhat of a success.

A/N: Likes? Dislikes? Comments on the weather? Feel free to review!


	3. Chapter 3

Ch. 3

_Step 2: Make pranks more comical and less hurtful_. _[September 15__th__-28__th__]_

This was one of the more difficult steps I set for myself. I wanted it at the beginning so that I would still be hopeful and not so discouraged that I would give up. As fortune has it, I was actually quite pleased with step one, as I explained to my fellow Marauders and Toinette the night of the Crying-Lily-Hug (christened by Sirius) in our dorm.

"And then I look up and she's crying," I explained as I paced across the room, a gleeful smile spread across my features.

"I'm telling you, that's one messed up chick, mate," Sirius told me in a very regretful tone. He's the only person who could ever talk about Lily that way in front of me.

"No she's not," I protested but I didn't hurl my Divination textbook at him, as I would have if Peter had been stupid enough to make a comment like that, or anyone else for that matter. "Anyways, I haven't finished. So I look up and see her crying and of course I think it's me, right?" I looked up to make sure I wasn't completely mental. Peter nodded furiously.

"Right," I continued pacing. "So I ask if it's me and she just shakes her head. It's like she couldn't talk." I noticed Remus was looking at me very hard as though he was trying to figure something out. "She kept shaking her head no matter what I suggested was bothering her and then finally she told me she was crying because I'd locked the kid up in a closet just so she could see me apologizing. Then she told me, and I quote, 'You're just so adorably stupid'." I paused here to add to the suspense.

"I was trying to figure out what she meant by this when she hugged me out of nowhere and then she just ran away," I looked at them all with my face incredulous. "So what the bloody hell was going on in her mind through that whole crying jag?"

"She's having her monthlies?" Sirius suggested with a shudder. Toinette, who was sitting in front of him on his bed, elbowed him in the stomach. "Hey," he rubbed the spot and stuck out his tongue at her, a gesture that she returned, while attempting and failing to escape him kissing her cheek.

"Well obviously she doesn't know what to think about you, James," Remus told me. He spoke slowly to make sure I got it. He always talked like that when we were talking about Lily Evans.

"Why can't she make up her mind?" I started pacing again. "It is _her_ mind."

"Because your actions confuse her," Toinette leaned forward. "First you do something inconsiderate, scaring the boy—" I started to interrupt but she held up a hand to stop me. "Then you get her hopes up, begging her to see what you wanted to show her. Then you dash her hopes, showing her the boy you locked up in a cupboard. And then you do something really sweet, apologizing to the boy as sincerely as you can manage."

"So?" I still missed the point.

"So," Toinette leaned even farther forward. "She wants to be mad at you for locking up the poor kid but she can't be because you only did it to make her happy so she feels a bit guilty which only makes her more mad at you because she doesn't want to feel guilty but then she feels guilty for being mad at someone who's trying to do something nice for her. Such complete confusion is truly overwhelming which is why she started crying but then she wanted to make sure you didn't think she was mad at you because she isn't, or doesn't want to be, so she hugged you."

All of the guys, Remus included, stared at her for a long pause. "Wow, Toinette," Sirius was looking at her in a new way, "You should write a book." Peter nodded in silent agreement.

"But what does the 'adorably stupid' comment mean? It's a complete oxymoron," I prompted, proud of my use of English grammar terms, gained in the muggle studies class I was only taking because Lily was it in, though why a muggle-born would want to take muggle studies was beyond me.

Toinette sighed. "You're adorable because you are clearly going out of your way to try and be nice to her. You're stupid because you're doing it by doing exactly what she wants you to stop doing."

"Oh," Peter, Sirius, and I chorused.

"Guys are so stupid," Toinette informed us.

"But adorably so," I reminded her.

"Indeed," Toinette shook her head and stood up. "I need something to drink after that speech, I'm heading down to the kitchens."

"Me too!" Sirius jumped off the bed.

"Grab me something, will you Padfoot?" I asked, getting off Remus's bed with several cracking hips.

Sirius paused at the door. "Sure thing, but I can't promise I'll be able to bring it all the way back here without becoming hungry and eating it."

I nodded to myself. "Alright then, I'll just have to eat some of those cauldron cakes mum sent me," I said to myself and followed him to the door.

"Where did you learn the word oxymoron?" Remus asked.

I paused, my stomach doing flips like it always did when she came up and smiled blissfully. "Lily."

"Ah."

There's something very comforting about music, you can lose yourself in it. In the music, you are each beat, each note, and each page turn. It takes practice, and occasionally you mess up, but I always thought that a piece is even more beautiful when the musician misses a few notes, it shows that they're human, and it shows what it is they struggle with: perhaps they can't sustain a note, play quickly enough, grasp the mood, slow down and relax, or put emphasis on the right things. No one else seems to realize how similar music is to life, but that's how I view everything.

For example, for the six years it took me to realize that Lily really wasn't in love with me, I was in the wrong key, and not quite picking up on the tone of the piece. Now that I'm in the right key, I have to learn the tune all over again.

I do all my best thinking at the piano. With a piece I know well I don't have to think, my fingers just go and I'm free to let my mind roam. Once when my mother found me asleep with my head on the piano I told her I'd hoped my dreams would be as fruitful as the thoughts that occur to me on the piano bench. She'd just laughed and walked away but I knew there was something about pianos that really sparked my mind. For this reason I found myself sitting on the piano bench in my room very early on a Saturday morning, trying to come up with funny but not hurtful pranks.

Anything involving the Slytherins would just piss Lily off, even if it weren't particularly mean. But I'd decided it had to be something involving a lot of people, if it was directed to just a few or one person than they might feel victimized (another Lily word). It had to be good though; I wasn't about to shame the name of Marauder.

Slowly plans began forming in my mind as my hands flew along the keys. I grabbed a quill and dashed down the basics and bolted out of the door.

It took me two whole days of consideration and research to figure out exactly what to do and to find the right spells in the library. Then I finally filled the Marauders in on the plot and we set it in action.

"Good morning Lily," I greeted Lily as we left the Heads room together.

She looked a little startled to see me saying anything that didn't involve a proposal. "Morning," she grumbled. I always loved talking to her in the mornings, half the time she's too asleep to even remember that I'd asked her out and too foggy eyed to aim properly when trying to hit me.

"How are you on this lovely morning?" She was too tired to even notice that rain was slashing at the windows and she prowled down the hallways.

"Please don't today, Potter," I cringed at the surname.

"Don't what, Evans?" I asked, realizing a split second too late that my persistent questions tended to bother her, god only knows why.

"James," she stopped and looked at me, a definite warning tone to the word.

"Okay, okay," I mumbled. "I was just being pleasant." I thought I saw her smile but it could have just as easily been a trick of light. I closed the one-foot gap between us as we walked and Lily was happily too asleep to notice so I was free to enjoy her closeness without having to fight for it.

"Where are you going Potter?" Lily asked tiredly as I went to make a turn. "The Great Hall's _that_ way." She pointed in the other direction.

"This way's faster," I started walking.

Lily followed me, seemingly just for the purpose of arguing with me. "No it's not. This hallway will take you to the dungeons, definitely _not_ where we want to be going."

"Shows what you know." I swept aside a tapestry and stepped into a well-lit passage.

"Excuse me!" Lily ripped aside the tapestry and followed.

"You're excused."

She ignored that. "But I know quite a bit, and I do know that we are nowhere near the Great Hall right now!"

I stopped suddenly and turned to face Lily. The action startled her and she almost bumped into me. "Are you really challenging a Marauder's knowledge of these hallways?"

That shut her up, at least for a few seconds. "Well then, Mr. Perfect," Lily started, gesturing for me to lead the way.

"Why thank you."

She ignored me again, but I could tell she was getting annoyed. God is she hilarious when she really gets angry with me. "Where _exactly_ are we then?"

I took another turn and Lily followed. "We are three floors above and about one classroom west of Professor Slughorn's potions class," I informed her as we passed a rather heinous portrait of an old wizard in maroon robes with an orchid pattern on it that was scratching his earlobe.

"That's it, I'm done with you. I'm leaving." Lily turned to one of the darker passages before I grabbed her hand.

"If you go that way you'll end up in the North Tower," I said smugly. "You're stuck with me."

Lily glared at me for a long minute and then tore her hand free stomped ahead of me, grumbling inaudibly all the way there, although I do believe I heard 'bloody prat' more than once. After five minutes of relative—on my part—silence she stopped short. "When exactly are we going to get to the Great Hall? I thought you said this way was faster."

I smiled. "It is," and knocked on the side of a suit of armor's helmet and it stepped to the side to reveal a doorway. She stepped forward and there we were in the Entrance Hall. "Happy now?"

Lily's eyes narrowed, then she nodded her head sharply and stomped her way into the Great Hall to eat. I lagged behind a bit to watch the effect.

With a sound rather like the tolling of a giant bell everything went haywire. Every table in the Great Hall sky rocketed with all the benches and the students seated at them soaring with them. I had gotten the idea from muggle studies with Lily. Each table and its accompanying benches were on a giant invisible roller coaster that went through the entire castle and grounds. It would take exactly seven minutes and thirteen seconds for the last table to finish its wild ride and settle back down to the floor in the Great Hall. It had taken a particularly long time for me to find just the right spells that would cure anyone with motion sickness so that absolutely no one would be at all harmed by this particular prank.

I walked up behind her as Lily stood wondering at the Hufflepuff table that was gradually descending in spirals from the cloudy ceiling. "It's something huh?"

"How did you," Lily spun around and watched the teacher's table fly up the stairs and towards the transfiguration wing as she fell speechless. "This is some really difficult magic."

I almost said 'it's nothing compared to the stuff we had to do to become animagi', but caught myself in time. It was too easy to let my guard down around Lily, God knows what would happen if I'd let that little secret slip with someone more dangerous around to overhear. "It took some time to put together, but I didn't do it all alone."

"But what about Toinette?" Lily spun around clearly with the intention of smacking me. "She's terrified of heights," her eyes cast around the two halls looking for the Gryffindor table, which I knew at this point, would be somewhere near the owlrey.

"Do you honestly think I hadn't thought of that?" I leaned against the wall casually as I stared at my watch calculating how long it would take for the tables to return with the bacon, I was getting hungry. "Pete's got a good hand with healing magic. We used a spell to cancel out any sort of fear of heights or motion sickness. It's really basic magic they use for beginner's broomsticks."

Lily's mouth formed a silent 'oh' as each table slowly glided its way back to the Great Hall, the students and teachers all chattering over this newest feat of the Marauders. "How come I didn't get to go on them?" Lily demanded.

I could have smacked myself on the head. "I'm sorry, we can set them up to go again later tonight; it's just a matter of renewing the spells. I'm so sorry Lily, I totally didn't even think!" I stopped to see her laughing at me.

"Relax, it was worth missing the ride just to see that reaction," she patted my arm and strided away to the newly reinstated Gryffindor table.

"Does that mean I should or shouldn't renew the spells?" I asked as I chased after her, completely oblivious to the pats on the back and congratulations coming from all sides.

Step 2 might have been a success…


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Note:

I'm so, so, so, so, SO sorry! I was super busy with starting college and all but I'm back and I promise to get back to the monthly updates.

Ch. 4

Step 3: _Don't ask her out every ten seconds. [September 29__h__- October 12th]_

Not asking Lily out was more a simple matter of just not saying it loud enough for her to hear. If she couldn't hear me she didn't answer, and not answering was one of her favorite methods of rejection. I had already been restraining myself rather a lot lately, so I felt like this particular step wasn't anywhere near difficult enough. I decided that as well as not asking her out, I was going to boycott Lily. Instead of following her, and sitting next to her in meals, and passing notes to her in class, and sitting in the Heads Common Room until she woke up in the morning, and sitting outside the bathroom door to hear her sing, and watching/threatening any guy that got within twenty feet of her, I'd just avoid all Lily contact as much as possible.

God knows that would be difficult, but I hadn't done anything with my life but worship Lily since first year. It would be interesting to see what would happen without constant Lily contact.

I started by waking up really early on the morning of the 29th. I rushed to the bathroom and did everything I needed to do fast enough that Lily wasn't even up yet by the time I finished. Then I hid in my room and Lily proofed it.

I put the picture of her and Toinette away and instead put up one of Sirius, Remus, Peter, and me from fourth year; we were all just sitting by the lake laughing and skipping rocks across the water. I put away the music I had on my piano bench and took out a new piece that I had never played before so that it couldn't remind me of her. Finally I buried the pillows with the lily embroidery (they were in the room when I got there) in the bottom of my trunk.

Satisfied, I settled down to wait until I was sure I had heard Lily leaving—was it just me or was she taking longer than usual—and then headed down to breakfast. As soon as I entered the Great Hall it erupted in cheering, everyone was still thrilled with the roller coaster rides. I grinned my classic toothy smile and swept a deep bow. Disregarding the empty seat next to Lily, I plopped myself down between two first year girls who looked absolutely horrified to see someone so much older and 'cooler' sitting with them.

"Hello. I'm James Potter." I smiled engagingly at them. "How are you today?" I asked as I helped myself to a chocolate chip muffin and some peppermint tea. I never liked peppermint tea, but Lily drank it all the time so I had a cracked up idea that if I drank it enough, I'd grow to like it, and then I'd want to drink it, and then some day Lily would notice me drinking her favorite type of tea, realize how much we had in common and how perfect I was for her, and agree to marry me. Yes, I know, that particular theory was a bit cracked up.

"We know that," answered a boy from across the table. He was openly staring at me with a spoonful of hash halfway to his mouth.

"I'm Samantha," said the girl to my right after slight pause.

"Meredith," said the one on my left.

"And I'm Johnny," said the boy who'd spoken earlier.

"Well I'm very glad to meet you all," I informed them. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lily glancing at me rather frequently during her conversation with Remus. I made a mental note to ask him later what it was about. "Any of you interested in Quiddich?"

It looked like I'd hit the right note, suddenly they didn't feel the need to sit in awed silence and I found that I actually enjoyed this whole new no-Lily movement of mine. I was enjoying myself, no one was glowering at me, and I had three potentially promising new Quiddich players sure to try out for the team next year. As captain it was my job to try and make sure I leave a strong team behind for the next captain in line; it may sound really silly, but besides Lily, Quiddich was one thing I always took seriously. If the Death Eaters hadn't been on the rise when we graduated, I probably would have played Quiddich professionally.

It took a few days for the real difficulty to start, because then Lily started to notice that I was not only giving her space, but also actually avoiding her. I almost stopped when I saw that she seemed to want to talk to me sometimes, but it became more than just being without Lily, I started to actually live. I wasn't being James without Lily; I was being James. There's a really big difference.

I hadn't realized how hard it would be to get away from her without offending her, especially since I'd set it up so that we'd have all the same classes. Finally, she caught me as we were leaving muggle studies.

It was over a week into my self-inflicted death sentence when I heard the chorus of angles calling me out of my personal hell. "Potter," so we were back to that again, not James, but "Potter, hey _Potter_, hold up." She appeared to be oblivious to all the surprised glances the entire hallway was shooting at her. I stopped and waited for her, trying to think up a believable scheme to escape and keep up my anti-Lily vow.

"Hello Lily," I said as soon as she caught up with me. "How are you?"

"I'm good, thanks," Lily gave me a really funny look but I didn't have a chance to try and figure it out before she looked away. "I've been looking for you," she said. I kept silent, forcing myself not to jump for joy. "We have to start patrolling soon. Professor Dumbledore sent me a note that we should start patrols on Tuesday nights now that we're settled in."

"Okay, sounds good," I answered. "Look Lily, I have to get to the library to look up a spell," I lied. "I'll see you later." _Stay away, stay away, stay away_, I repeated the mantra in my head, hardly focusing on the conversation.

"Perfect, I was heading there to start the potions essay," Lily smiled and turned towards the library. I knew for a fact she'd finished it the night before because I had seriously considered swiping it from her desk and copying a few phrases when I heard her murmuring the password outside the portrait hole.

_Think of something, fast! _"Oh wait, I left my book in Muggle Studies, I have to go get it," I lied again and hoped she wouldn't recognize the text sitting there in my arms.

"I'll wait for you," she offered, shifting her weight to one side as though she expected to be standing there for a while.

I made a shooing gesture with my hand, "No, no. You go ahead, I don't want to hold you up," I lied. _Good job._

Lily smiled weakly. "Never mind then," she said. "I can work on the essay later. I'll see you around."

"Yeah," I echoed, "Around."

It wasn't until she was around the corner that I realized what I had just done. With a deep groan I started smashing my head against the very muggle studies book I had told her I didn't have. All this stupid anti-Lilyness was killing me. I should have taken the opportunity to go to the library with her, hardly anyone would be there and she was actually talking to me, actually _wanting_ to talk to me.

I gave my head one last hit for good measure and then turned to walk to the Common Room.

"I don't know what you were thinking, mate," commented the portrait of a swarthy Spanish youth riding a black horse. He looked like he belonged on the cover of one of the crappy romance novels my mum loved to read. "You just blew it big time."

"Yeah, I know," I muttered darkly, shaking my head at my own stupidity.

The next day I had the consolation of Quiddich try-outs in the afternoon. It was something to look forward to, as Lily apparently hated me again. I though that by giving her space she'd realize that I wasn't just in it for a fling (although the six year pursuit should have been enough for most reasonable people) but it appeared I'd given her too much space. Now she glowered whenever I got within ten feet of her.

I chose to sit with my first year friends again instead of across from someone so blatantly against my continued existence. We had a pretty good meal together as they were now accustomed to my presence and I was starting to really like them for all they were eleven year olds. It was interesting to hear what Hogwarts looked like to people six years younger than me. I'd forgotten how huge it seems at first.

Samantha was the brave one—ironic, as they're all Gryffindors—but she always had the strongest opinions and had no issues with saying just what she thought of everything, including my relationship with Lily.

"You've been trying too hard," she informed me at lunch. "She's certainly flattered, but with your reputation, it does seem like you just want her for the sake of getting her." I opened my mouth but she stopped me. "I know you don't, but you have to see it through her eyes. You tell her you love her so much and all this stuff but then you go kiss a random girl and break her heart and what's Lily going to think then?"

"So I've done some stupid stuff," I admitted. "I haven't done anything that bad in ages, but still she won't even look at me." I glanced at Lily and cringed when her glare met my eyes.

"Well you can't expect her to change overnight, now can you?" Samantha demanded.

"Maybe not, but see, I have a plan." And then I explained my whole plan and my list to them. Samantha thought it was brilliant but Johnny was less convinced. He was the most like me out of the group I'd say; he had the makings of a future troublemaker, given the proper training. The only thing that worried me was that he also seemed to share my previous view of girls, an amusement just drop when he got bored (when he got older of course, I found out later it was born from the influence of several older brothers). And that's what got me in so bad with Lily, and I was sure it would come back and bite him in the butt in a few years time.

"You've been chasing this girl for six years now, and you still haven't given up?" He asked, raising his eyebrows at me. "Why, more that half the girls in this school would go out with you, why waste your time waiting for her?"

I bit my tongue and counted to ten, reminding myself that yelling at a first year would not help my case with Lily, even if he were underestimating how perfect she is. "Because she's Lily," I stated as matter of fact-ly as I could. "Why wouldn't I wait?"

"But I'm sure you could find another girl named Lily," he suggested, shrugging as he took a bite of his grilled cheese.

I opened my mouth but Meredith cut me off. "Maybe its not the name he cares about, John, maybe its something more than that."

I stared at her for a long minute, watching through the corner of my eye as she picked at her lunch—nothing new, she didn't have a very big appetite—for and eleven-year-old she was incredibly perceptive, and I wondered, not for the first time, how she was so serious for someone so young.

"You'll get it some day," I promised, swigging down the last of my pumpkin juice. I swung a bag over my shoulder and glanced at Lily who was buried in some novel or other. "Some day when you love someone," I continued, ignoring the nagging voice that told me I sounded exactly like my mother when I'd asked her why she still liked my dad after they got in one of their big fights. I was scared at the time that my parents would get divorced or something awful like that, but knowing how Lily and me could fight, I was really started to understand what my mum had been getting at. Then again, Lily and I weren't married, and by the current state of things, it didn't look like we would be any time in the foreseeable future, though divination _is_ an inexact art.

It was a few hours before twilight when I made my way down to the pitch, whistling with my hands in my pockets, the very picture of innocence. I knew for a fact that within twenty minutes all of the Houses' Common Rooms would burst into heatless flames in the colors of their house (except Slytherin where the flames would be painfully bright white light that would blind someone stupid enough not to close their eyes). [Mostly] harmless, clever, and I was nowhere near the school to have made it happen. Not that we were in much danger of getting in trouble, when there was relatively little harm done, McGonnagall had given up on punishing us.

I leaned against the base of the Hufflepuff tower as students filtered into the fading sunlight and headed towards me. Some were the usual crowd of chattering girls from all houses, most of which would giggle for a moment on the pitch, and then disappear into the stands or back into the castle. I considered dating one of them for a moment to prove to Lily that she had her space, but then again, how would I get rid of my new "girlfriend" afterwards? Besides, that would go against my brilliant plan that was on track for success, that is, if Lily would talk to me again.

Shaking my head, I ignored them and focused on the legitimate players. There was Sirius and Geoffrey Cane, beater extraordinaires—except when Sirius was trying to show off to some girl in the stands; then he was an idiot. I would need two new chasers this year and maybe a new seeker if I could find a really talented new one. Haley Kirsten was pretty good, but she got sick fairly often, and Madame Pomphry never lets anyone who's sick play Quiddich.

I watched through narrowed eyes as Ben O'Leary swaggered onto the field. He had almost as big a following of giggling girls as I had, except he had none of the natural charm, only the Quiddich talent. I hated to admit it, but he was a gifted keeper, _and_ he had gotten his chance with Lily. I gritted my teeth at the memory.

It was Halloween in sixth year, and we'd just won our first match against Slytherin with one of our chasers and our seeker out, in the hospital wing with curious magical illnesses they had caught somewhere between the dungeons after potions and lunch—walking right by the Slytherin Common Room.

My Marauders and me had thrown yet another amazing party in the Gryffindor Common Room, and for once, Lily was in attendance, not hiding in her dorm, refusing to partake in my victory. I thought it was some sort of sign, and of course, just when I was ready to turn on that classic Potter charm—insert toothpaste commercial grin and wink—darling Benny gets on a table and announces that he was something very important to say. And right there, smirking at me rather than even looking her in the eyes, he asks Lily to go to Hogsmede with him.

Of course, the entire Common Room goes silent as everyone stares, not at Lily, like I was doing, but at me, waiting to see how I would react to this new development. It felt like the walls were spinning in circles and the only thing still, the only thing I could hold onto was the shock on Lily's face. Then she turned slowly to look at me, her mouth twitched a little bit as though we were old friends smiling at some inside joke and said with a flirty grin staring me right in the eyes, "I'd _love_ to go to Hogsmede with you Ben."

I never thought she'd actually say yes to him, with all the times she'd called me "a arrogant, annoying Quiddich jock", I never thought that she'd date _him_ of all people. If anything, he was _more_ arrogant than me, and with less reason. He may be a gifted keeper, but I can still get a shot past him two times out of three. It didn't occur to me until a lot later that she didn't really _hate_ me for being good at Quiddich or being a little too cocky at times, they were just excuses that she could mark against me when I did something commendable in her eyes.

As if the fact we were mortal enemies wasn't enough, the bloody bastard wasn't even good to her. To his credit, he never actually cheated on her that I know of—and boy, I tried to catch (or frame) him doing something wrong—but he never appreciated her like I would, and in the end he broke up with her at the end of the year so he could do whatever he wanted to with idiot muggle girls who lived closer to him.

Toinette told me later how hurt she was. Maybe at least a little part of the reason she'd started dating him was to torment me—Ben and my rivalry wasn't much of a secret—but she really did like (I refuse to say love) him, and he really did break her heart. I considered some pretty awful pranks for him, ones I usually saved for Snivelly, but Toinette talked me out of it; lucky for me, considering Lily probably would have agreed to go out with him again this fall if I'd done anything really awful to him.

As if he could read my thoughts, Ben smirked as he walked up to me. "Any luck with Evans, Potter?" he asked, loud enough for everyone to hear. "I don't know why you waste your time with the obsessive lunatic." His story for why he broke up with her was that she was clingy and the most jealous girlfriend known to mankind.

"I think you can see for yourself how successful I've been," I edged, trying to think of a truly biting comeback.

Ben shrugged, "I don't waste my time paying attention to that crazy bitch." He had also claimed that she gave him amortentia once when she thought he might break up with her. "How am I to know who she's sleeping with now?" Another story he had circulated said she cheated on him with half the Quiddich players in the school, myself included—I wish.

I bit my tongue, hard, and held back the swear I felt rising in my throat. "Then I'll enlighten you, I've had a tad more luck than you had in getting the captaincy; I still have a chance."

O'Leary's face went from tan to red to purple in a matter of seconds. "Watch it Pot—"

"Okay," I clapped my hands and turned to the rest of the players, interrupting him mid threat. "How about to start you all mount a broom and everyone who is not in Gryffindor please clear the field." Tell me it sounds idiotic, but at that at least half the people—all girls—left and headed for the lake or to the stands to watch.

It was a matter of minutes to narrow down the team to the main twenty or so kids who had a chance. Ten kids for chaser (myself included), two for beater with Geoffrey and Sirius, Haley and three other seekers, and then Ben against a slim second year who had a lot of potential but who kept dropping the ball with nerves.

As the sun was about to slip behind the forbidden forest I gave everyone a five-minute break while I narrowed it down to the last few options. I already had my choices in mind, but why kill someone's dream when they can live in it for a few more minutes. When everyone headed to the stands I stopped the second year with a knack for keeping, "Julia, right?" I asked her.

She looked like she was going to burst into tears on the spot. "Uh, yeah," she tried, and failed, to smile at me.

"Listen," I said, "I need to ask you a favor." She looked incredibly confused but to her credit, kept silent and listened. "I _really_ don't like O'Leary, and I would rather not have him on the team again this year. You have a lot of potential, but you keep scaring yourself too much and making foolish mistakes." I glanced over my shoulder to make sure no one was nearby. "If I give you the spot now, it will be obvious why, so I'm going to have you two have a play off; whoever saves the most out of five is on the team, the other plays alternate. You got it?"

She frowned a little. "I guess so, but what do you want me to do?"

I thought for a minute. "Do you have any siblings?"

Julia grinned, "A big brother, Jacob," she informed me.

"And do you and Jacob ever play Quiddich together?" I asked.

She nodded. "All the time. He's a chaser so we practice all summer. I even blocked a few of the harder shots this summer, he said."

I smiled encouragingly. "I know Jacob, or at least I know of him." I made a mental note to get a better look at the Slytherin chaser. I instinctively disliked him because he was in Slytherin, but he wasn't part of Snivellius's gang so I figured he might _almost_ be half decent. "He's a talented player. If he says you're good you must be." Julia glowed at the praise. "Just pretend you're playing at home with Jacob. Stop worrying so much and you'll be fine."

Julia took a deep breath. "Okay," she said slowly, "I'll try."

"That's all I need." I smiled at her again and walked out onto the pitch. "Okay everyone, lets get back out here and finish up before it gets too dark to see the front of our broomstick handles."

Soon everyone was out on the pitch, sitting in a circle on the grass and waiting for my decisions. "We're going to have one more trial for the keepers and chasers, seekers I have figured out," I announced. "Jamie Tanner is our new seeker. Sirius and Geoffrey are still our beaters." Everyone applauded quietly. "Thank you to the rest of you and I hope you try again next year. For those of you who made the team, we'll be having a team meeting the day after tomorrow to discuss the practice schedule." The seekers and beaters stood and walked away, some to the stands to watch, the rest back to the castle. "And everyone else, let's get this wrapped up."

I hopped on my broom and kicked off, enjoying the crisp air whipping through my hair and making me come alive with excitement. With a final twist, I shot back to the end of the field where the group was gathering. "Okay, best out of five for the two keepers, we're going to be rotating chasers and I'll watch your shots to decide. Julia first."

Julia shot me a terrified glance but I looked evenly back at her and she smiled a little half-heartedly. The first shot was direct at the left hoop, no feigning or tricks and she just barely caught it, but I think it proved to her that she really could do this. The next one was a bit more tricky, but still manageable. When she successfully blocked all five shots, I think the only person more surprised than Julia was Ben, who was glaring at me. With exactly ten chasers, everyone shot once, including me. I had saved my shot for Ben, and as I said before, I was the only person to ever get by him on more than luck.

Ben almost missed the second shot and easily snagged the other three right out of the air. Before I knew it, it was my turn to shoot. I looked hard at Ben, he was grinning to himself, and shooting confident looks over at Julia who hovered nervously twenty feet to the right. It was a matter of seconds to decide how to approach him and before he knew it, I was soaring straight at him full speed. Ben startled a bit when he saw how close I was getting but concentrated any ways. I pulled my arm far further back than I ever would in a real game, and hurdled the ball straightforward. Just as it was leaving my palm I pushed it unnoticeably with my thumb and grinned as it curved gently to the right and then soared through the golden hoop there.

He was completely dumbstruck at Ben stared at the red ball steadily falling to the ground behind the hoop. His face was completely unreadable as he rode slowly to the ground and dismounted. I gave the signal for everyone to land and ignored him as he trudged up the castle.

"Great job everyone," I pretended Ben hadn't just walked away and kept talking. "I've chosen Joanna Timmons and Rachael Redder as our new chasers. Julia, you're obviously our keeper, and don't forget about the team meeting in two days." I grinned again, I just couldn't believe Ben's bad luck—and I couldn't get enough of it. "I'll see all of you around then."

My good humor lasted until I got to the Heads room where I realized I had to patrol with Lily, and she was going to eat me alive.

I physically felt myself tensing up as I approached Rosalie's portrait. "Good afternoon Rosalie," I smiled in spite of myself. "Inquisition."

"Good afternoon to you, Mr. Potter," Rosalie pursed her lips at me as she swung slowly forward, "You look worried."

I almost smiled at the accuracy. "And people say women are fools," I teased. "Yeah, Lily and I aren't on the greatest terms right now," I confessed. "In fact, I'm a little worried about being locked in a cupboard at some point during our patrol tonight."

Rosalie laughed full out—or at least as hard as one can laugh while being suffocated in a corset—and smiled at me, I think every portrait in the school knew all about mine and Lily's little spats. "I'll give you some comfort," she promised, "if she comes back without you I won't let her in until she has you, Minerva or the Headmaster with her."

I gulped thinking of Lily's reaction to being locked out of her own room. "I think that may make me worse off, but at least I won't be sleeping with the rats," I answered, conveniently forgetting that one of my best friends was in fact a rat. With a wave I ducked into the room and glanced around for Lily. To my relief she was in her own room and I didn't have to cringe away from a death glare just yet.

I placed my broom gently on my bed and sighed as I glanced out the window towards the lake. It had seemed like such a good idea to give Lily some space, but now I was worried that all I'd managed was to drive her away. As long as she didn't start dating O'Leary again I was fine.

A gentle knock on the doorframe wakened me from my daydreams, Lily stood in the doorway, looking possibly more than angelic. "We have to patrol," she reminded me in an entirely neutral voice.

I just nodded, lost for words that she was so—empty. It was like she just got rid of all her emotions before talking to me; her voice was flat, her face expressionless. I couldn't quite decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand, she could just be restraining the loathing; on the other hand, she could have gotten over it but still wasn't happy to see me; on a third hand—I know, I should join the circus with my three arms—maybe this change had nothing to do with me.

Disliking the third option—I liked to pretend Lily's life secretly revolved around me as much as mine publicly revolved around her—I joined Lily in the Common Room and we headed out together.

"Have a nice patrol," Rosalie called as we passed. I chuckled, knowing she'd have the entire school of paintings watching us all night to make sure Lily didn't ambush me. I had a hunch Rosalie would not be in a pretty mood on my last day at Hogwarts.

It was odd being with Lily, especially after avoiding her completely for what felt like years. Things were coming back to me that I'd never really forgotten, but just forced out of mind while I couldn't let myself see her, the way her hair swishes about a half inch from side to side when she walks, how she has a little bubble of sweet smelling air constantly surrounding her, how she bounces when she goes down staircases.

I got my Lily fix as we walked silently through the (uncommonly quiet) hallways. Occasionally we would awkwardly brush hands turning a corner, and then hurriedly whisper apologies. I had never been so awkward with a girl since I was twelve, and I had never had such a magnificent time at it.

Patrolling with Lily, it almost felt like we were choosing to spend time together. Sure, we weren't chatting like old ladies out for tea, but we weren't at each other's throats. If I drifted a little bit, it felt like walking with Toinette, when we don't have anything important to say so we just don't say anything at all, the relaxed silence of real friendship. Except in mine and Lily's case, we were forced to walk together, and if I could have gathered enough brainpower to think of something to say I would have.

In less time then I believed physically possible—I still think Lily used magic somehow—we were back outside the Common Room and Rosalie looked more than a little disappointed that she didn't have to scour the castle searching desperately for decapitated body to mourn over. Much to my shock she greeted us with, "You were out for a while."

"We were?" I asked dumbly.

Lily looked at me like I was crazy. "James, I asked if you wanted to head back three times and you just shook your head and stared at me like you are right now. Geneva," she directed to Rosalie.

"You called me James again," I answered. Rosalie sniffed disdainfully, but I saw a glimmer of a smile as she swung forward.

Lily shook her head. "Unbelievable."

I clamored quickly into the Common Room after her. "It's true," I insisted. "You stopped calling me James but now you just did again. Does that mean you don't hate me?"

She looked hard into my eyes. "No, obviously I don't hate you. I'm talking to you, aren't I?"

I looked at her in wonderment. "So does that mean all the times you were screaming at me you didn't hate me because you were talking to me?"

"No, I loathed you then," she answered with something resembling an almost smile.

I frowned. "So do you loathe me now, and saying you don't hate me was just false hope, or do you only dislike me?"

Lily opened her mouth and then closed it. "I don't really know," she finally told me, shrugging resignedly.

"Oh." It wasn't the confession of secret love I had been hoping for through the past seven years, but it was the closest I was going to get. "Why aren't you still mad at me?" I asked, slapping a hand over my mouth as soon as I said it.

"I wasn't—" Lily started out with a flat on denial. "Because I realized I can't blame you for doing what I've been asking you to do all along."

"Really?" I sighed quickly, I half expected her to storm out of the room and avoid me for another week. "Well that's a relief. I thought you were just mad at me for something I didn't know I did."

Lily's eyes narrowed. "Since when do I ever get mad about nothing?"

I actually laughed at her, for the first time I laughed _at_ Lily Evans. "Third year, Sirius convinced—or rather jinxed—all the portraits to move around in the Slytherin corridor so that the students were asking the wrong portrait to get into their Common Room. You blamed me and wouldn't look at me for three weeks when Snivel—Snape told you. Fifth year, someone made all the girls in your dormitory's hair disappear for a few hours and I still don't even know who did it. Just last year _Toinette_—and she even admitted to you that she did it—jinxed a choice few gutless 'Death Eaters Anonymous' Slytherins so that they had to go kiss every muggle born witch or wizard on the cheek. Later that year—"

"Okay!" Lily interrupted. "Okay, so I jump the gun a little bit in blaming you, but most of the time it is you."

"Well yeah, a few times," I curbed. "But how am I going to know what I did wrong if you won't even tell me?"

Lily struggled with herself for a minute, then concussed, "I suppose you wouldn't know."

"So what did I do this time?" I asked, knowing the answer and praying she'd at least say it.

Lily frowned. "Ignoring me."

I resisted the temptation of reminding her that the only phrase she said more often than 'Potter, leave me alone' was 'No Potter, I will not go out with you'. "But you're talking to me now?"

"I did ask you for space a few times in the past," I coughed at the understatement, "And you were such a sweetheart to that girl Julia."

My mind reeled, finally zoning in on the Quiddich try-outs that seemed centuries before this revealing conversation. "Quiddich?" was all I managed to stutter.

"Yeah," Lily smiled. "She was so nervous and you convinced her to relax and get her head together. It was really sweet of you, even if you did have your own motives."

"But I told her my real motives," I reminded her. "I told that I just want all of the world's worst miseries bestowed upon O'Leary."

Lily almost smiled and I wondered if I ought to have left that whole can of worms unopened until another day. "Of course. Goodnight James." Lily patted my shoulder and before I could blink was back in her own room.

It wasn't until some time in the early morning, as I lay awake that I realized I had no clue what she had been doing watching me at Quiddich try-outs.

Step 3 was definitely a success.


	5. Chapter 5

Ch. 5

Step 4: _Don't act obsessed with myself, very humble. [October 13__th__-26__th__]_

The really precious moments are the ones that are the hardest to believe. Whenever something truly amazing happens, a miracle or just something pure and beautiful, it's hard to have faith that it's really real, that something so magnificent can exist, that something so spectacular could really happen to you. I wish it were the other way around: that the awful moments would seem surreal and the fantastic would seem commonplace. But then, I suppose that would make the really amazing moments that much less amazing.

So no matter how many hours I spent pondering the one-minute conversation I had had with Lily, I could never quite put my finger on the best part. Was it just that she had decided to speak to me, or finally admitting that she had continuously abused me far beyond what I deserved for years, or that she almost admitted missing me in the past week, or was it just getting to look in her eyes and not find pure hostility there?

Whatever the deep and profound vein that had penetrated that minute, it remained elusive of me; and regardless of my lack of comprehension, I couldn't stop thinking about it. Really I couldn't stop thinking about her, but that was hardly new. I couldn't believe that she had come to watch Quiddich try-outs. A whisper in my heart said that she had come to see me, but such thoughts had been my cocky downfall in the past and—in theme with the next step—I was determined not to make such a foolish assumptions again.

In preparation for the upcoming holiday, the castle was becoming spookier daily. Pranks started cropping up left and right that I, for once, had nothing to do with. I have to say, painting the floor of the corridor is considerably less amusing when you have to help clean it up. Granted, I wasn't actually scrubbing, but Lily and I were put in charge as overseers of the detention-ees who had to scrub away the thick paint without magic.

"How much longer, James?" Johnny whined, sitting back on his heals and holding a scrubbing brush speckled with chipped paint in his hand.

I shook my finger at him and smirked. "Until the job is done Johnny-boy," I could have laughed at his anguished expression. "You shouldn't have set those bats on Professor Binns now should you?"

Johnny gave me a look of disappointment and disgust. "What would you have done? It took him ten minutes to even realize anything was following him." Even as he was speaking his eyes gleamed in enjoyment of the prank.

I walked forward, shaking my head until I was sure Lily couldn't hear me. "I don't know what I would have done, but I do know what I wouldn't have done;" I paused for the dramatic effect, "_I_ most certainly would not have gotten caught."

The slow grin that spread over Johnny's face made me chuckle as I walked back to where Lily was criticizing the work of a big Slytherin girl I wouldn't have insulted unless I wanted a black eye.

"I heard that," she whispered conspiratorially as we strolled past Joseph Bonham, a third year I had recruited years ago to the rebellious world of Hogwarts magic. As a tiny, thin kid, he was an incredibly discreet hexer; no one ever noticed him slipping in and out of crowds. I taught him all I knew of annoying and tactful jinxes and inspired a deep-set hatred of Slytherins in him his first year. It was not one of my prouder accomplishments as the Hufflepuff was now resorting to nastier and more painful ways of humiliating every Slytherin in the school.

Joe sent me a look of disappointment—I had been the one to turn him in for hanging a tiny blonde Slytherin girl named Narcissa upside down from a light fixture—he had never thought that I of all people would ever punish him for a prank I would once (disgustingly enough) have gotten a good laugh from. I chose to ignore the look rather than risk what Lily might hear by my talking to him, "You heard what?" I asked her, copying her blasé expression and tone.

"Heard that you telling Johnny _you_ wouldn't let yourself get caught," she answered evenly.

My heard stopped as I examined her face through the corner of my eyes. She didn't look mad, but if anyone could mask her emotions until the right time to release their full fury, it was Lily. "You know I was just joking around—I wouldn't anymore—you know how it is—I, uh…"

"You were being honest?" Lily asked, smirking a little bit, and letting me know I was not about to my hung from a chandelier myself (although I'm sure if she wanted to Lily could be much more creative than that).

When I chose to maintain what I thought was a dignified silence she continued. "Oh please, I've spent years studying your pranks," Lily admitted, crossing her arms and pursing her lips, "I was trying to find some way to get you into trouble for what everyone in the school knew you were behind but couldn't find enough evidence to convict you for. I don't think I have ever met someone better at escaping justice, and you certainly never would have let a prank as simple as Johnny's get traced back to you."

It was as if I had died and gone to heaven. My two most favorite things in the world, Lily and pranks had come together in a glorious union, a cacophony of perfection roared in my mind. She was actually complimenting me on my trouble-causing ability, really my punishment-avoiding ability, but in that moment they were the same. Instantly, all manner of cocky responses came to mind, but I bit them back as I recalled my plan.

"I don't know about that," I started. "When I was a first year Filch got me for making super speedy rats follow his damn cat around all day," I reminded her. It killed me not to mention that the grumpy caretaker had found a note I'd written Sirius about it that the idiot was supposed to have destroyed. "And just two years ago I got nabbed by McGonnagall for casting that jinx in the North Tower that caused the glittered gold mist where you couldn't tell which way was up."

"So that was you," Lily commented. "I had a suspicion but I guess Professor McGonnagall thought you'd enjoy the attention too much if everyone knew that was you. It was pretty advanced magic. Where'd you find that spell anyways? I looked in all kinds of books but I couldn't find it anywhere. I even resorted to checking the library records to see which books you'd checked out."

"So there is some benefit to volunteer work," I joked, making a mental note to see what other information Lily had access to.

Lily gave me a sly look. "Yeah there is, but don't think I didn't notice you changing the subject. Where'd you get the spell?"

"Err—" I hesitated, biting my lip, but there was no way to answer her question but the truth. "Well I sort of made it up," I started, sure she'd think I was lying. "I mean, Remus did a lot of research for it, and Sirius and Peter volunteered to be my guinea pigs—that's why they both 'skipped' a few days of classes for no apparent reason, we couldn't get them back out—but yeah, I uh, I wrote it…" Slowly, I trailed off, expecting her to accuse me of all sorts of arrogance and other such exaggerations.

Au contraire, her expression just plain floored me. When I finally worked up the courage to look at her, Lily was staring at me with such awe and shock that I thought maybe the sky really had fallen or maybe my nose had suddenly turned purple with rust colored stripes. "You _made_ it?" she demanded.

"Well, yeah," I started to explain. "Once you get the principle it's really not that hard. See illusions are really easy to create; since I wasn't _actually_ getting rid of gravity, just creating an illusion of weightlessness, it was a relatively simple spell. The human mind wants to believe illusions." Her wide-eyed absorption of this information encouraged continuation.

"The difficult part was making it stay put." I quickly became enthusiastic as I realized she was honestly interested. "It would all be wasted if someone could just conjure up a breeze and send the spell out the window; that took some work though I give Remus full credit. I don't even know what he did, but he put all manner of counter-jinxes and such into it so that no spell yet invented—including the unforgivables—could possibly penetrate it. Adding the gold glittery-ness was just for show. My favorite part is that only a Gryffindor could make it through. All you have to do is take the next step, and only a very brave person would be able to do that."

Lily just stared at me for a solid twenty seconds, her eyes flickering across my face in a highly disconcerting manner. "I bet you would have gotten through it in a second," I added, if only to say something to fill the silence.

At that she smiled a little. "No actually, I didn't," now it was my turn to stare. "I stood in that mist for at least ten minutes trying every spell I could think of to get out until I just got pissed off and decided that if something catastrophic happened when I took the next step, at least I wouldn't be stuck just standing there anymore."

"Oh." I hesitated. "I should have known you'd be far too smart to try and take the easy way out."

She didn't answer at first. "So you wrote that spell, huh," she mused. I didn't respond because I didn't think she needed me to. "You know, I bet if Dumbledore heard about that he'd probably give you a pat on the back rather than a detention."

"Oh he did," I told her with a laugh. "Behind McGonnagall's back. She'd never let me get away with any prank. Her feeling—and I admit it's not too far from the mark—was that for every time they caught me, there were about eighty pranks they didn't catch me for. But Dumbledore," my voice filled with admiration, "he appreciates good magic when he sees it, and he brought me to his office just to say so."

Lily gave me a funny look. "You're bragging you know."

I was immediately on the defense. "Well I wasn't going to tell you, but then you asked and so I had to tell you the truth, and then you mentioned Dumbledore so I wasn't about to just skip around the truth there either so it just came out."

"Stop, stop, stop," she interrupted me with a huge grin. "Bragging is okay when you have something legitimate to brag about. Creating a spell, any spell, let alone one that suspends time and space, is a huge accomplishment, even if you did break about three hundred school rules and probably a few laws along the way."

"Oh, well that wasn't even that bad," I added, tempted to tell her just how accomplished a wizard I really was. "The only laws we know we broke were to test the Unforgivables on it. Now if it's laws you want to hear about breaking—"

Lily's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You know what," she mused, "I don't think I really want to know right now. If you tell me, I'll feel like I have to turn you in, and I don't _think_ I want to do that. How about you just don't give me that option?"

I smirked; convinced that she had no clue just how low my Marauders and I had sunk below the restrictions of the law. "Someday Miss Evans," I promised. "Someday I'll fill you in."

"Works for me," Lily answered over her shoulder as she walked away towards a clump of girls who were talking instead of scrubbing. She was such a mystery to me, everything she said contradicted everything she did, and everything she used to tell me didn't seem to stand any longer.

Absent-mindedly I cast a heating spell at the bucket of water next to a twig-like shivering blonde girl, pretending to have some thing to do besides stare at Lily. We didn't speak to each other for the rest of the detention, but I was sure that we'd come to an agreement: in some odd way we were something of friends, because for some reason she didn't _want_ to get me in trouble any more, and that was a huge step in the right direction I hoped.

"Oi, Prongs," I chose to ignore the call that would certainly bring some calamity with it. "PRONGS!"

I sighed inwardly. "_What?_" I stopped short and spun on the spot.

With a colossal thud Sirius bashed straight into me running at full tilt. "We've got to hide," he panted. "Filch is on the prowl and he knows we're the ones who raided his closet of confiscated objects!"

Instinct took over and I grabbed Sirius's arm and dragged him into the corridor to our left. He was perhaps the only person in the school who knew as much as me about secret passages in Hogwarts, but I had just found a new one I was sure Filch didn't know about and I hadn't shown to even Sirius yet. "What do you mean we raided his stash?" I asked as we crossed through a rather crowded hallway a couple floors above the Entrance Hall. I dashed for a staircase that lead up near the teacher's lounge as I heard Filch's hoarse yell somewhere far behind us. "I haven't been near his office in weeks."

"Allow me to rephrase," Sirius amended. "_I_ raided his office, and so you're going to get blamed too." He kept running as we reached the passage's entrance.

"Wait," I grabbed his arm at the elbow and yanked him back. "Onomatopoeia," I told the matronly looking colonial schoolteacher in the rather boring wooden frame.

"Simile?" she asked with a heavy glare.

"Yes, yes," I glanced over my shoulder, waiting for the caretaker who was undoubtedly only a few steps from rounding the corner. "Metaphor!"

The woman gave us both a dark look. "You know I should leave you out here, I'm sure you're up to no good."

"You can't," I answered, getting agitated. "Anomaly. Apostrophe. _Alliteration_!"

"Well fine then," she huffed and then swung forward. "Come on," I told Sirius, diving through the rather small hole into a free fall.

I heard Sirius's whoop as he realized this wasn't your average secret passage way. There was a solid two minute drop that would land us somewhere near the Slytherin Common Room. It was a pain to climb all the stairs back up, but well worth it as Filch would never think to look several stories below where he'd seen us last. That is, unless he did know about the passage, in which case we were screwed.

"So how long does this fall for?" Sirius asked, lighting his wand to see the area better. I lit mine as well and we looked around. It was surprisingly wide and I had expected the walls to be slimy with muck. On the contrary they were a cheery red brick you see quaint houses on cookie cutter muggle streets made of.

"Give or take two minutes," I answered. "I haven't timed it yet, but I'm reasonably sure Filch doesn't know about it. If he does, he'll be at the bottom when we get there because I'm sure there's only one staircase coming back up."

Sirius absorbed this in silence. "You don't happen to have your cloak on you, do you?" he asked, probably considering how a detention would interfere with his time with Toinette.

"Nope," I answered calmly, "but we know more than our fair share of excuses. "Did Filch actually see you in his office?"

Sirius coughed in disgust. "Come on, how amateur would that be?" he said. "I'm insulted. He must have installed some sort of identification charm or something cause I've been breaking in almost weekly to get my Fanged Frisbee back.

I laughed at him. "You don't think that's how he knows it was you?" I asked. "If someone keeps breaking into his office, and you keep getting your Frisbee back, don't you think he can put two and two together?"

"Don't overestimate that man's intelligence, Prongs," Sirius answered. "I bet the cat could figure that out before he could."

I chose not to answer. Filch had caught us far too many times not to have some form of intelligence, or maybe he just always blamed the Marauders if there was any form of slightly complicated magic involved.

"I'm assuming that this escapade is the reason you missed practice today?" I asked Sirius after a pause. "I can't cover up for you again Padfoot, this is three now."

"Who cares?" Sirius demanded cockily. "The whole team knows they aren't getting anyone better, and no other beater in the school can keep up with me."

I glowered into empty space. "It's not the team," I answered. "You know O'Leary's taken to showing up at practices and criticizing everyone. If he gets wind that today wasn't the first practice you missed than you're screwed."

"Nosy git," I heard the glare in Sirius's voice.

"So quit skipping," I told him firmly, knowing he'd only listen if it suited him. "If I have to kick you off the team we're in trouble for the Cup." I glanced down at the fast approaching flagstones. "Get ready, we're about to land."

Almost instantly we stopped short in what felt like a thick jelly-ish substance in the air. Slowly we sunk through it until we dropped a short six feet to the stone floor below. "Neat secret passage," Sirius told me as we mounted the stairs. "But I don't think it's worth having to climb all these stairs." He paused in thought. "Think we can steal a few school brooms, leave them here and spell them to return to the bottom of the tunnel when we're done with them?"

"Good plan," I told him. "Me and Lily are patrolling in two days. I'll tell McGonnagall that we have the DADA corridor covered so you can get the brooms with no trouble. If Lily and me run into you I'm reasonably sure I can convince her out of turning you in."

Sirius looked doubtfully at me. "If you say so. What spell would we use though?" he asked. "And do you want to stop by the kitchens? I think we're close by."

I shrugged in response to the first question (the answer to the second was a given). "I'm sure Moony can come up with something." We reached the top of the staircase and quieted down in case Filch was nearby. "I think we're clear," I whispered.

It took mere seconds for the two of us to race down two corridors and tickle the pear. Before we knew it, we were in the kitchens with cups of tea and bottles of butterbeer being shoved into our hands. "Masters Potter and Black," the extra squeaky one called out to us. "It has been so long since I is been seeing you!"

"Remmy!" I took the hand of the head house elf and shook it vigorously, causing him to blush and stammer.

"You are too polite, Mr. Potter, far too polite to meager little Remmy. What can we dos for you Sirs today?"

"I think just something light today, my good elf," Sirius patted him firmly on the back, causing the poor creature to jerk forward unsteadily. "We're laying low for a half hour or so to hide from—well, just to hang out."

"Of course Sirs," Remmy backed up, bowing repeatedly. "We elves are the very souls of discretion."

I smiled appreciatively and flopped down on a stool near the fire, _it was getting colder in the castle these days_, I mused as I popped open a bottle of butterbeer and took a deep swig, feeling it's bubbly warmth fill me up from my toes. "Remember that time we drank about thirty butterbeers a piece in third year to see if we could really get drunk off of it?"

Sirius snorted into his glass. "Yeah I do," he answered, laughing. "God, that was stupid. We spent a solid twenty minutes in the bloody toilet afterwards and we didn't even get a buzz."

"Not to mention we had to hide all the empty bottles somewhere so we threw them in that broom cupboard in the middle of the night and almost got busted by Filch." I smiled reflectively, "we were such idiots."

Sirius chuckled. "If we _were_ idiots than what does that make us now?" he asked.

I thought for a moment, "Morons. It has a little bit more of a ring to it, don't you think?"

"Definitely," Sirius agreed with a nod. "Although I was thinking more along the lines of fantastically-popular-and-attractive-sole-hope-for-the-future-of-our-motherland-England, but morons sums it up pretty well too."

"You know sometimes I think Lily had a point about the whole arrogant thing," I told him, "maybe I don't give her enough credit."

He raised an eyebrow. "It you gave her any more credit she'd be God. Haven't I heard enough about Evans' intelligence for eighty-three thousand lifetimes? Besides, if she really had such an issue with cockiness she never would have gone out with O'Leary; he's got twice the arrogance of you and me combined and a fraction the reason."

I sat up straight, "_O'Leary._ Damn it, I forgot!" I practically shouted, much to the dismay of several house elves. After we assured them numerous times that my outburst had nothing to do with them and they had not caused any form of displeasure, I explained myself to Sirius. "You won't believe what else happened at the practice you _chose_ to miss."

Sirius looked worried for a second. "He doesn't want to try and take my spot as beater does he?"

"He would if he could," I answered. "But you've seen him try to swing a bat, it just doesn't work." I took a slow sip of butterbeer, enjoying Sirius's anticipation.

"Cut the crap, Prongs!" He glowered at me, "Stop stalling."

I guess he knows me too well. "He was commenting on your absence and generally fishing around, but no one would give him a straight answer. So then he started just harassing players at random, you know, the usual: 'I can't believe you missed that shot captain, no wonder Lily won't date you'," I imitated his arrogant drawl. "But then he started on poor Julia, and you know how she is about being under pressure," Sirius nodded, his eyes darkening perceptively. "To make a long story short, she fell off her broom," I finished.

"_What?"_ Sirius demanded, "How could you have not told me sooner?"

"I was a little preoccupied with having to kick my best mate off the team," I reminded him, extracting a grimace. Besides, I already know she's fine. I was at practice, so I knew she got hurt, so I knew she'd be in the hospital wing, so I visited her like a _good_ teammate and captain and she's not dead."

"Enough," Sirius finally interrupted. "I won't miss another practice. So can she play?"

"Nope."

"Pomphry?"

"Yup."

"Bitch."

"Uh-huh."

"O'Leary?" Sirius asked.

I let out a weary chuckle, playing up the hopelessness. "Nope, Professor Vicks apparently heard him harassing her for falling off and gave him a detention. McGonnagall couldn't convince him out of it."

Sirius let out a low whistle, "Hufflepuff's got three great, _veteran_ chasers," he reminded me.

"Yup."

"And we don't have a keeper."

"That's pretty much the right of it."

"So why aren't you throttling someone?"

"Because then I'd probably end up with detention too and if I can't play Keeper, who else will?" I answered, relishing the dramatic timing of my revelation.

Sirius grinned ear to ear. "You're brilliant Prongs," he informed me, standing up and taking a last swig from his butterbeer bottle.

_I know,_ the answer was automatic, but for Lily I had to come off auto-drive, "Nah," I told him as we stepped out of the portrait whole, "Just a half-decent Keeper when I need to be."

"And now the score is 150 to 10, Gryffindor, with yet another beautiful save by Captain James Potter," Ariel Eniter's nasally voice proclaimed across the stadium as I hid another grin. "You wouldn't expect the Gryffindor Chasers to be able to get so many goals without him, but with a bludger to Hufflepuff's Keeper Jones's head, it's hard to keep much _out_ of the Hufflepuff hoops." A chorus of boos met the Ravenclaw commentator's narrative, but to be honest, she was only saying it like it was.

I'd forgotten how much I liked playing Keeper, it certainly wasn't Chaser, but it was nice being the last line of defense. You got to do what no one else could do, the last detriment to the opposing team's score. If I'd been really adamant about keeping O'Leary off the team, I probably could have become Keeper myself, there were plenty of good Chasers at try-outs, but it went against my nature. I was made to be on the offensive, to go out and get things done rather than sit and wait for them to happen to me; then again, if I'd spent a little less time going out and doing, maybe Lily wouldn't have such a heavy grudge against me.

"And the Seekers enter a spectacular dive, Hufflepuff's ahead—and OH" I could practically hear Ariel's rather overly-large body thump against her seat in shock, "Some nice bludger work by Black and the Snitch is lost again."

I grinned to myself as I circled closer to the right hoop. Sirius really could afford to miss practice as often as he did, no one could stop him once he got going. "And so it's a pass to Timmons, now back to Redder, Timmons, Redder, and ooo, nice under the broom toss to Courtly and SCORE!" The gold and scarlet corner of the stadium erupted into cheers. "The score now stands at 10 for Hufflepuff and 160 for Gryffindor. Those Hufflepuff players better step it up or else grabbing the Snitch won't be enough for even a tie."

With narrowed eyes I scanned the crowd, hoping for some sight of the Snitch to tip off Jamie somehow. Without intending to my eyes searched out and focused in on Lily. She looked radiant, her glorious red hair supporting her team and shining like a beacon next to the golden-yellow sweater she was wearing. On most people I would consider it a rather ugly sweater, in all honesty it _was_ an ugly sweater, but I knew enough of Lily's sense of humor to know she'd wear it anyways just for kicks (and of course to support Gryffindor).

"Hufflepuff Chaser Griffith is closing in on the Gryffindor hoops but Potter doesn't seem to have noticed," Ariel's nasal voice broke through my reverie. "Perhaps he's feigning to make it an easy save," she guessed wrongly.

I cursed myself and soared towards the right hoop, having drifted heavily left, relying on intuition since it was far too late to rely on skill. "Griffith throws for the center hoop and—I don't believe it, he's done it again. Gryffindor Captain and usually Chaser James Potter has made his twenty-third save of the day folks. He's really—oh!"

With a start, the entire field looked frantically about, searching for the interruption to Ariel's speech. "The Seekers are at it again, but Gryffindor Tanner's on the wrong side of the field…can she make it?"

It was an impulse decision. I knew it was odd. I knew it wasn't the usual job of Keepers, but someone had to do something or else we'd tie the game and everyone would blame it on my bad captaincy at not choosing the 'clearly' better Keeper, O'Leary, over a personal grudge.

Leaning forward and accelerating at a rate an earlier model of my Shooting Star Eleven wouldn't have been able to manage, I arrowed across the field, the Quaffle still tucked securely under my arm. I didn't meet any opposition by way of bludger or player; everyone was focused on the Seeker's race, not realizing there were three people racing on that field, not just two.

"Tanner is ten yards away, now six," Ariel informed me, _just a little closer_. "But I don't think it's enough, little Sari Chang's a tiny thing, hardly holds her broom back at all. She's only a few feet away now."

_Throw_; with a last gust of energy I hurled the Quaffle at the center hoop. It sailed straight and true, unopposed… "One more foot for Chang…" and through. "Chang's got the Snitch; Hufflepuff and Gryffindor t—"

Ariel was cut off by a sharp blow on Professor Vick's whistle. "Last second score by Gryffindor Chase—Keep—_Captain_," he called. "Gryffindor wins!"

The sound was deafening.

"I think the real commendation should go to Miss Julia Wellington," I informed a Common Room full of butterbeer bearing Gryffindors. "If she'd been there she would have made all twenty-three of my saves plus the one I didn't. To Julia!"

"Julia!" The crowd cried back, and I have to say, it was worth giving up a little credit for Julia's grinning face, if not O'Leary's glowering one. _Of course, neither were the real objects,_ I allowed to myself as I hunted through the crowd for a rather surprised Lily.

"That was really something," she commented when I finally found her. "Though you and I both know a little girl in the hospital wing had nothing to do with that win today."

I shrugged. "It doesn't matter what you and I think," I answered, loving how much better 'you and I' sounded coming from her lips rather than mine. "But it matters to _her_." We both turned to look towards Julia, surrounded by fans inquiring after her broken collar bone as though she had earned it today in the game, rather than at a practice they'd heard nothing about.

Lily smiled. "That really was sweet of you," she told me, still watching Julia and her friends. "More than sweet," finally, she turned back to me and started at the enraptured expression on my face. "What?" she asked, "I'm sure that's not the very first time I've ever complimented you?"

I chuckled. "Damn near," I don't know where the honesty came from; it just did, right as rain whenever Lily was around.

"Well don't get used to it," Lily took a sip of her butterbeer to hide her smile.

I couldn't help but beam at her. "Just doing my job appreciating my players," I tried to tone my glee down a tad, if only for appearances.

Lily's mouth twitched, a sign of amusement. "You know, you're not half bad, James Potter," she informed me, tipping her head to one side. With a blink I'm sure she didn't even notice, she turned and walked towards Toinette and Sirius on one of the couches.

"You too," I called after her. She looked back over her shoulder at me but just smiled. "_Lily _Potter," I whispered to myself, watching fascinated as she plopped herself in between Toinette and Sirius, declaring to the room, and to much laughter, that they were getting a little too close for public places, much to the dismay of several chattering girls (Sirius's fan club) and awestruck boys (Toinette's fan club).

Step 4 was a roaring success.


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Note: I know this is a little late but hey, it's finals week, be glad I'm posting at all. Almost on break though so I'll try to get a good bit of writing done then.

Ch. 6

_Step 5:_ _Watch lots of old movies to learn from "Old fashioned gentlemen". [October 27__th__-November 9__th__]_

"So who's Frank Sinatra?"

Sirius questioned me as we lounged in the 7th year boys' dormitory. I glanced up from my fiddling with the muggle recordable thingy that was supposed to let me listen to this guy's music.

"I dunno, Padfoot," I mused. Laughing to myself as he continued his sit up workout on his bed, going down over the edge of the bed to get 180 degrees of toned abs. To be honest, I really never felt the need to work out like Padfoot; though it was true he could probably beat me in a muggle-style fistfight. "But Lily likes him."

With a groan Sirius flopped back, letting his shirt fall in his face as though he wasn't trying to show off that he had a slightly more outlined six-pack then me, like _I _cared anyway, Lily didn't so why should I? Pulling a fistful of shirt away from his face he continued, "So you want to listen to it why?"

I gave him a look that said quite clearly, _you know exactly why_.

"Okay, okay," he allowed, letting his shirt fall back in his face as though I was too pathetic to even look at. "So you're obsessed with every tissue Evans sneezes into, but are you planning on just casually bringing up that you just happen to listen to exactly one muggle musician who just happens to be her favorite?"

"Err—" I thought I caught a glimpse of a spell that might be helpful in getting the recordable thingy to play in my muggle studies book, not really listening to Sirius.

He droned on regardless. "Cause that's just stupid Prongsie." Toinette opened the door with her mouth open to say something but she shut it quickly on seeing Sirius dangling over the end of his bed. "You know she's way too smart to fall for that" he droned on, "and then she'll know that you're just as obsessed as ever and be scared away. Damn that girl's intelligence."

"Right, right," I encouraged, fighting off laughter as Toinette crept up on a still clueless Sirius. "_Damn_ that." Thank god Sirius has no perception of sarcasm.

"So," Sirius thought he was coming to a dignified and truthful conclusion, despite the rather undignified position he was giving it from. "My point is you should just give up on that damned recordyer and come play Quiddich with me, it's not going to do you any good."

With a vicious jab, Toinette stabbed her fingers into the space between Sirius's second and third ribs from the bottom where he was most ticklish—as an uninvolved third party with only good feelings for my dear cousin, I don't want to know how she discovered that spot—causing him to squeal rather femininely and fall right off the bed, his head cracking on the floor pretty loudly.

We couldn't help it, Toinette and I burst out laughing at Sirius's stunned face looking from the floor to Toinette's smiling face above him. "That was wholly unnecessary," he complained. "I might have hurt the floor," he added. "_And,_ I know where you're most ticklish," he cried, diving for her legs and tackling her to the ground so he could get a better reach at the back of her knees.

Finally, exhausted they both gave up tickling each other to the sound of me faking throwing up onto the floor. "Please you two, I do not need to see that, and right now I don't need another reason to give Pad a black eye!"

Toinette laughed, stretching out on the floor, not looking like she intended to get up any time soon, "Why would you give him a black eye? This may come as a shocker to you but I actually like his face…a _little_."

"Yeah, why?" Sirius laid his head on her stomach like a pillow, ignoring the last comment as an obvious understatement.

"Cause he's been harassing me for hours to go play Quiddich when he knows perfectly well that I'm occupied and that both Peter and Remus are in the Common Room who would both be perfectly happy to play with him." I stated, flipping a page in the book and giving the recuerdo thing a puzzled look.

With a sigh Toinette gave Sirius's head a shove—intending to make him sit up—which he ignored. "What are you occupied with anyways? Remus said you've been up here for over an hour."

"Exactly!" Sirius exclaimed. We ignored him.

I frowned. "This recerdy thing that's supposed to make music," I held up the heavy box to show her. "It's not working."

Toinette shrugged, or shrugged as well as one sprawled on the floor can do. "Don't ask me, I'm not the one in muggle studies. Lily has one," she suggested. "Why don't you ask her?"

"Cause then she'll know that he's only listening to the bloody thing to try and _be_ her since he can't be _with_ her," Sirius answered for me.

Toinette laughed at that, and laughed hard. "You really think that'll work, James?" she asked, ignoring Sirius's complaints that she shook so much. "That Lily will believe you just have some kind of odd fascination with muggle gadgets?"

"She might," I mumbled, flushing brilliant red as the stupidity of the whole thing hit me. "But this week I'm supposed to be watching old movies to learn from old fashioned gentlemen, and I thought I'd start with old music."

Toinette giggled, she enjoyed my getting-Lily plan more than anyone else. "And you also expect Lily to believe that you just happen to love her favorite random muggle artist?"

"That's what I said," Sirius put in, trying, and failing, to sound intelligent.

"No," I whined. "I mean, yeah…I don't know," I sighed. "I guess I just wanted something to connect us."

Sirius and Toinette exchanged a look, finally taking me seriously, or at least semi-seriously. "James," Toinette began, using her best talking-down-to-a-seriously-misunderstanding-child voice, "a relationship shouldn't be based on liking the same music. I really do think Lily will learn to like you," she held up her hand to stop me as I started to interrupt at her use of the word 'like' rather than the word 'love', "but you have to give it time."

"I won't say it," Sirius said, "You know my opinion." He'd long since said that I should just give up on the crazy girl—which earned him a black eye at the time—and if I couldn't manage that just grab her and kiss her rather than spending all these years beating around the bush.

I sighed, resigned in my defeat. "Wait," I sat up again, triumphant, "What if I told her?"

"You've really lost it mate," Sirius answered, raising his eyebrows skeptically. "Any girl in her right mind—though I'm not sure Lily is—" he paused to duck the pillow I chucked at his head. "As I was saying, any sane girl would run screaming like a banshee if she read that psycho-obsessive list you've got going."

"I think it's cute," Antoinette put in, tapping Sirius on the head with an impatient finger. "How come I agreed to go out with you for any less?"

He smiled winningly and I got ready for an elaborate lie. "Because, I think it would be a very bad call to tell a girl you wrote a list like that, so I didn't tell you about it."

Toinette smiled back; completely aware of the game he was playing. "Is that so?" she raised one eyebrow, glancing at me with laughter in her eyes, "Can I see it?"

It was the one thing Sirius didn't want her to ask; regardless, his hesitation would have been unnoticeable if I hadn't known him better than myself. "Of course you can," he promised. "But its at home, you'll have to wait until Christmas break for me to get it." _Nicely played out_, I mused.

Recognizing defeat, Toinette looked back at me. Furrowing her eyebrows in confusion she asked, "What's up with you, you look really sad all of a sudden."

"Oh nothing," I answered glumly. Knowing I wouldn't get away without a real answer I continued, "Just thinking that me and Lily should be having cute conversations like this."

She frowned in sympathy. "You will. But what was your brilliant idea before my unfortunate boyfriend" –"hey" Sirius pretended to be bothered—"so _rudely_ interrupted you?"

A bit of a smile perked me back up again. "I wasn't planning on telling her about the whole list, I have to admit agreeing with Sirius, it would probably scare her," I started, "But maybe just asking her to watch some moovvy with me—is that what they're called? —and just saying that I'm trying to be more like the guy she described. A list would be freaky, but a well meant thought is sweet." I trailed off happily, then snapped out of my reverie. "Right?" I asked, suddenly desperate.

Toinette was looking at me with the most peculiar look in her eyes. "Of course that's sweet!" she promised. "Why aren't you ever this romantic?" she demanded of Sirius, smacking him lightly across the head. I was starting to think they were in an abusive relationship.

"Ow," Sirius rubbed the top of his head, "its sore there, in case you don't remember pushing me off the bed."

Toinette pouted. "Poor baby, do you need some ice?"

He ignored her. "I guess you could try that Prongs," he allowed. "But I still think you're giving yourself way too much of a headache."

I allowed this; my head _was_ pounding. Losing myself in my thoughts on how to go about convincing Lily to watch a movie with me—something that could be considered a date by some, I left Toinette and Sirius to their playful bickering. Tuning back in whenever something caught my ear.

"Will you get your big head off me already?" Toinette demanded, trying to sit up. "You're hair isn't quite as thick and luscious as you think it is."

With a groan he finally hoisted himself up, twisting to lean against the bedpost. "Alright, I'm up, you can stop glaring at me now. To be entirely honest, your stomach isn't all that comfortable anyways," he sniffed disdainfully. "Really though," he became more serious, an interesting feat for one who is already named as such, "when did you become so bony? I could feel every one of your ribs."

With a frown, Toinette touched her stomach, looking at it. "I don't know what you're talking about," she answered with a too-casual shrug. "I was sick for a while last month, maybe I lost some weight."

Sirius opened his mouth to answer—probably to comment on the fact that she was never remarkably sick aside from a small cold, something I noticed as well—but she cut him off. "So how about some Quiddich already? I can take you. Besides, I don't think James will be joining you any time soon."

With a lopsided grin Sirius jumped to his feet. "I'll have to settle I suppose, since Prongs is so against fun these days." Toinette smiled and shot me a sympathetic glance as they exited, leaving me alone to my thoughts.

"Maybe I won't tell her anything," I said to the empty room.

"That's the best idea you've had all day," answered the mirror in the bathroom.

Annoyed, I slipped off the bed to search for the one person who could improve my mood. "No one asked you," I grumbled as I passed the bathroom door and started down the stairs, ignoring the indignant "_rude_!" issuing from the toilet.

"James!" I had to restart my heart. It seemed impossible that _that_ particular voice would ever shout out my name.

"Hi Lily," I smiled casually and stopped and watched in wondering silence as she sped up to reach me. It seemed like only a week since she wouldn't have exerted that much energy to reject me, forget actually have a conversation with me.

"Hey," Lily took a deep breath, as though she was as breathless in my presence as I always was in hers. "Where are you headed?" she asked as we started off again.

"Just around," I answered calmly, trying to guess through the corner of my eye just how much space was between us. A foot? Nine and seven-eighths inches? "I was thinking of walking up to the Owlry and then just heading back to the Heads room." If I reached out, would my hand brush hers? "You?" I asked, trying to keep my head concentrated on moving my feat forward in a semi-straight line.

Lily smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Absolutely nothing. I already finished Slughorn's essay, Toinette's with Sirius, and Carly said she had to go talk to McGonnagall about something." She shoved her hands into her pockets and I realized she was nervous. "So do you want any company? I wouldn't mind visiting Hippolyta anyways," she named her owl.

I had to think about how to speak coherently, I think she noticed the pause cause she looked worriedly towards me. "Of course," I answered quickly and she smiled in response.

"Good," she responded, looking ahead again. "You had me worried there for a minute," she joked.

I shrugged nonchalantly, "Well, I have lots of demands on my time you know," I informed her. "I can't go off cavorting with every gorgeous girl who asks for a minute." It was a risk, I knew it was, she could take it as another of my many attempts to win her over (I don't think she had quite realized yet that everything I did was an attempt to win her), but it was just so easy. The jokes and sarcasm came so easily with my redheaded muse right there beside me.

To my relief she just laughed, and to my joy it was a real laugh: full smile, strong sound, glowing eyes. The Lily-Evans-Laugh I had to listen through keyholes and peer around corners to see or hear before. "And there are a lot of these gorgeous girls just throwing themselves at you?"

"Of course," I started, as I would have said if I'd been talking to Sirius about our various adoring fans. But this was Lily, and Lily hated cockiness, even joking cockiness. "I mean—there are…a few…" I ended pathetically.

Lily chuckled, rounding a bend so I couldn't see her face. "How many, would you say?" she asked.

"Er—" I followed her quickly, trying to catch a glance of her face and see what she was thinking, "Well I suppose there are, er, maybe fifteen or…maybe…more?" I grossly understated, and that's not even pride speaking. With just one girl in each grade of each house I would have twenty-eight, and I was more than relatively sure there were far more than that.

"Maybe more?" Lily asked as we reached the Owlry door, finally turning around and leaning back against the door. "How many more?" she asked raising an eyebrow. It was hard to breath, let alone speak in the narrow doorway, and a pulsing energy I figured only I felt seemed to charge the dark space.

I looked straight at her; my eyes were just level with hers because the spiral stair to the Owlry was too steep for me to stand on her stair. "I can't say for sure," I answered, stalling, distracted by the slight space of a foot or less between us. If I kissed her now, what would she do? "Three or four or—"

Lily smirked, "Or another fifteen?" she asked, pushing the handle on the door and illuminating the slight passageway with foggy sunlight. "Come on Potter, you're no fun if you won't be honest." She stepped back through the doorway and entered the Owlry, heading towards her owl.

"I didn't want to sound cocky," I grumbled quietly, confused. "That's what you said you wanted."

"Hm?" she asked, distracted by Hippolyta who had just flown down to perch on her arm.

"Nothing," I answered quickly. I stroked my owl Charlie a few times to keep from having to face Lily and letting her see my discomposure after the encounter in the stairway. "Be careful," I warned Charlie quietly as I tied my letter to his leg, "we're supposed to have some bad weather soon." With a hoot that seemed to say _'shut up already'_ he leapt into the air and flapped his way through the ever-present English fog.

I felt Lily walk to my side. "Who are you writing?" she asked. "Oh," she added suddenly, "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be nosy."

I smiled, turning to face her at last. "My mum," I told her. "She gets antsy if I don't write every other week. She's a little overly worried, though I guess I can't blame her," I added.

"What do you mean?" Lily also leaned against the window, supporting her owl with the other hand.

"She's an auror." I said, frowning to myself. "It's her job to be suspicious of everyone. Especially since we lost my da," I trailed off.

Lily stared at me. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "How'd he go, if you don't mind my asking?"

I shook my head. "Not at all, he was an auror too. He died on the job." I shrugged. "It's part of the risk they accept." She was quiet, letting me think. "What do your parents do?" I asked, trying out a lighter topic.

Lily chuckled cynically. "Nothing, they're dead too."

I stared at her; I couldn't believe Antoinette had never told me. "I'm so sorry! I didn't know."

"Don't," Lily held up a hand. "It was a long time ago. My mum died of fever a few weeks after I was born; my dad had a drinking problem and couldn't afford to pay a doctor." She studied the stonework along the window ledge. "After that he went over the edge. Started drinking at noon and kept going till he passed out, or so my grandma tells me. He died of liver disease when I was four."

"Oh Lily, I'm sorry," I couldn't believe I'd walked myself into that hole. I'd thought parents were a safe topic and here I was making her miserable. "That's awful."

"It's okay," Lily smiled to reassure me. "Really," she said, "it was a long time ago. Lets talk about something less grim," she offered. "What's your owl's name?"

"Charlie," I answered automatically. Not sure whether I should be glad for the change in topic or worried that we should talk about it or something. Girls are always so cryptic about conversation. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a female who claims not to want to talk about a certain topic is in want of thorough and in depth discussion.

"He's beautiful," she commented.

"So is yours," I answered. "Hippolyta, right?" I asked, knowing the answer as I reached out to stroke the impressive eagle owl.

"Don't!" Lily started just as the massive owl's head lurched forward and bit my hand in that soft place between the thumb and pointer finger.

"Bloody hell!" I ripped my hand away and grabbed the bleeding part. "Is that an owl or a hippogryph?"

Lily cradled the bird to her chest defensively. "Well if you didn't try to go around touching other people's animals you wouldn't get bitten! Hippolyta's just scared."

The owl's steady, dark brown eyes had anything but fear in them. "That's rubbish," I accused, glaring at the bird. "That _menace_ isn't scared at all."

"Of course she is—" Lily started to disagree but Hippolyta suddenly took flight straight at me. I ducked quickly, covering my head as the beast soared just inches above me. I stood slowly, peering out from under the protection of my arms until I located the owl safely far away on one of the higher beams.

"You look ridiculous!" Lily suddenly burst out, laughing out loud. "The Quiddich Captain and team hero, of Gryffindor no less, afraid of a little owl!"

I frowned. "That _thing_ is not little!" I insisted, trying to remain serious.

"Fine," Lily stopped laughing, but she was still smiling. "Let me see your hand."

I held it out gingerly, wiping the blood off my other hand on the windowsill, almost smiling as I imagined the look on the face of whoever came to the Owlry next and saw dried blood all over the stones.

"It doesn't look too deep," she said, stepping closer and examining my hand within hers. The horrified stranger was forgotten as I caught a whiff of the beautiful, warm scent coming from her hair. "We should probably put some pressure on it to stop the bleeding though," she commented, though I could hardly concentrate on her words.

I kept perfectly still as her eyes cast about the bare room, "I don't suppose you have a handkerchief?" she asked glancing up quickly.

"Er—" I took a second to process the question and frame a coherent response. "No, I—I don't think I do."

"Hm," Lily bit her lip adorably and stared off into the distance. "Ah," she let go of my hand for a second to remove from her hair the navy blue ribbon she had been using as a headband. "This will work," she said. Grasping my hand again she wrapped the ribbon around exactly four times and then tied it in a bow.

"There," she said, patting the back of my hand lightly. "All better," with a grin she smiled up at me, her face suddenly just a few inches from mine. There was that energy again, the energy I always felt for her, but it was stronger now, stronger than ever before, so strong I was sure there was no way she didn't feel it too. She had to, because I could see it brightening those brilliant eyes I'd been so sure couldn't be any brighter.

I think we might have stood there for over a minute, just staring at each other. Every moment I told myself I would pull away after just a few seconds more but I couldn't make myself do it. I was trapped, unable to back away but unable to move any closer. "James," she whispered finally, so quietly I would have thought I'd imagined it if I hadn't seen her lips move.

"It's probably almost dinner," I announced, still quietly, but loud enough to disperse the phantoms of raw energy filling the room. "We should—"

"Yeah, we should," Lily answered, but neither of us had moved a millimeter.

I turned first after another moment but she followed quickly behind. It wasn't until we reached the bottom of the staircase that I realized I was still holding her hand, and she mine. As we turned the corner I casually allowed my hand to drop.

"I'm telling you Moony," I said yet again as we sat in the Heads Common Room the next day. "There was something there!"

"Absolutely," Peter agreed and I nodded in acknowledgement, but it was Remus's approval I was vying for.

"We were just looking into each other's eyes for practically five minutes, and then she said my name, and she was holding my hand, and she smelled like honeysuckle, and she was _so_ beautiful!" It was probably the tenth time I'd told him all this, but maybe this time he'd see how key it was.

Remus examined the fringe on the couch's armrest. "I don't know, Prongs. It sounds like you're exaggerating quite a bit, if not completely hallucinating. How many day dreams have you had of you and Lily in the Owlry together?"

I narrowed my eyes. "Six-hundred-and-fifty-two."

Peter's jaw dropped. "Please tell me you didn't really count," Remus begged.

I grinned. "Of course not, I made that number up. The real one's way higher than that." Remus just shook his head. "That is a good point, but I've also imagined me and Lily together just about everywhere else in the world as many times or more. Besides, if I was really dreaming and my subconscious was really in control of what was going on, don't you think we'd be doing a hell of a lot more than staring at each other?

Remus chuckled. "That's the first legitimate thing you've said all day. And I'd actually believe you if anything between you and Lily had changed."

He'd hit on exactly what I was most worried about. "I know," I answered darkly. "I don't know what it is. One minute I'm this close to asking her out—and possibly even being accepted or at least not slapped—and the next she's darting out of rooms as soon as I walk in."

"Who darts out of rooms as soon as soon as you walk in?" asked a voice from the portrait hole.

"Lil—" I suddenly recognized that voice. "Li—Livy—Olivia, Peter's…cat." It was a pretty good lie on the spot, though somehow I doubted she believed me.

Lily walked over and plopped down on an armchair next to Remus. "I didn't know you had a cat Peter?" she asked casually.

"Yup," Peter answered quickly, "I just got her this year and she's real skittish. Hides under my bed mostly." I found myself wanting to hug the boy for his superb lying ability.

"Oh," Lily looked disappointed, as though Peter had convinced her and she'd wanted to catch me in a lie.

Remus stood up then and Peter stood with him. "Well I'm off to find Padfoot," he told me. "I'll get him to give me a hand with my, uh, furry little problem." My eyes widened, I'd forgotten tonight was the full moon.

"Alright," I answered, scratching my nose. "I'll meet you _there_," I put just a slight bit of stress on 'there' so as to keep Lily from being suspicious while specifying that they were to go ahead to the shack without me.

"See you James, Lily," Peter said as he followed.

We were silent for a long enough moment to make it awkward. "So what's Remus's furry little problem?" Lily asked suddenly.

I started, having drifted off into a daze. "His, er, his rabbit. Peter's cat's been trying to eat it," I made up, speaking as the words came to mind, "we've got to make it some kind of new cage…with magic so that it won't sense the cat around anymore and can calm down." _Not bad there James_, I applauded myself, _not bad at all_.

"Oh, that's good." The tension was practically audible. "So I was thinking for Halloween, are the Marauders planning some crazy party?" she asked.

"Er," I filtered through recent conversations I hadn't been paying too much attention to. "Yeah actually," I recalled, "the guys asked me to talk to you about that. Can we throw it here?"

Lily grinned and I felt some of the tension in the room fade away. "That's exactly what I was going to ask you," she said. "It's like you read my mind. Who do you want to invite, only seventh years?"

"We were thinking fifth years and up till 12, then we kick all the people we don't really know out and have a _real_ party," I suggested. "Sirius was able to convince Rosmerta to sell him some of her spiced rum, don't ask me how cause I knew better than to ask."

"Alright," Lily answered, part of me had been expecting her to claim she never drank even though I'd coerced some interesting stories about drunk Lily from Toinette once. "Costumes are mandatory I assume?" she asked.

I scoffed. "Of course. No Halloween party is complete without outrageous costumes!"

Lily grinned, "I completely agree. Now, don't you have to go help Remus with that rabbit of his?" she asked.

"Crap!" I jumped out of my seat and glanced through the window at the gathering dusk. Luckily for me the moon hadn't risen yet, but it wouldn't be much longer; I couldn't let myself get distracted by Lily like this so often. "You're right, I have to go. Let me know if you come up with any more ideas for the party."

"Sure thing, James," Lily answered. It was as though the previous day had never happened; whatever had passed between us in the Owlry she had long forgotten it seemed. But I was sure I'd make her remember, and the Halloween party seemed like the ideal place to do so.

"Tada!" I turned to see Lily, striking a fashion pose in the doorway to my room, dressed up as a Centaur. She had somehow ingeniously managed to create hind legs that actually walked in synchronization with her front ones. She looked absolutely stunning in a tan tunic that made her hair glow.

I smiled in appreciation. "Very nice," I commented, not specifying if I was commenting on her costume or her beauty. "How'd you get the back legs to walk?"

She smiled, clearly thrilled that I'd asked the one question she was most looking forward to answering. "It was fairly simple really," she lied. "I enlarged a horse stuffed animal, cut it in half, created an illusion to make it look more like a real horse and to hide my human legs, and then cast a few tricky little charms to animate them."

I sniffed. "If that's simple, so is alchemy," I commented. Perhaps I shouldn't have because I almost passed out—a most un-masculine action—at the glory of her responding smile.

"You're looking rather dapper yourself," Lily commented, chuckling. I could have eaten ten thousand barrels of bullotuber pus to hear her say it again. "I'm assuming Dumbledore has no idea how perfectly you have recreated his beard?"

I took a step back, placing a hand on my chest in shock. "And have him thinking I mean disrespect! Never!" I relaxed into a more normal pose. "You have no idea how many potions I had to drink to grow this thing. I've been working on it all morning."

Lily chuckled. "I wondered why you were in the bathroom for so long. I was worried you'd tried a transfiguration that went wrong."

With a raised eyebrow I led the way out of my room. "James Potter does not have transfigurations-gone-wrong."

"Well excuuuuuuuse me," Lily answered sarcastically, but when I checked—cause you always have to check with Lily—she didn't look mad.

"Lily," I cocked my head to one side, forgetting how silly I must look in deep purple, wide-sleeved robes with a huge white beard descending from my face. "We're friends right?"

She frowned. "Well I thought maybe—"

"OI PRONGS!" I think I jumped a mile when Sirius started hollering outside the room, so much for a being dignified, powerful wizard. "Let us in!"

Lily smiled at me kind of funny and turned to the portrait hole to let them in. I couldn't tell if she was confused, or sad, or amused, or happy. It was really very befuddling. I could have stood there all day contemplating the complex layers of meanings behind that smile but I was interrupted by a rather impatient Sirius.

"PRONGS! I am gonna hex you into oblivion—hi Lily!" I smiled to myself at his change in tone. "I didn't realize you'd—well he—door." He trailed off pathetically.

"I live here too, Sirius," Lily answered smoothly, leading to more confused stuttering as he tumbled through the portrait hole, followed by Remus, Peter, Antoinette and Lily's friend Carly. I could actually sympathize with Sirius's stuttering; I couldn't recall a single time Lily had called him by his first name.

I have to say, we Marauders truly hit a new high when we planned this year's Halloween costumes. In addition to my Dumbledore, Remus was wearing dark green women's robes and a very convincing wig as McGonnagall, Peter had somehow replicated Filch's disgusting brown shaggy coat and was carrying a live cat—we'd had to purchase one and name her Olivia to cover our story—and Sirius had actually stolen some of Slughorn's best dress robes and a box of crystallized pineapple.

But Toinette, she really pulled out all the stops. She spent all day applying engorgement charms upon herself, and it took a lot considering her twiggy frame, and was wearing the most gaudy, frilly, pink dress that has ever been made. She had even dyed her pale blonde hair the auburn-brown of the Fat Lady and spent hours curling it to perfection. It took all the strength of Sirius and I combined just to tug her girth through the portrait hole. It certainly didn't help that she wiggled ceaselessly, laughing at our efforts.

Following Toinette, laughing hysterically, came Carly. She was Lily and Toinette's bookish friend who I didn't know much about. She had long, straight brown hair that hung well past her shoulders and was just barely over four feet tall. I have to admit, embarrassingly enough, I didn't really know much about her. Lily never talked to me before this year and any time I chatted with Toinette I was grilling her about Lily.

Given my lack of knowledge about Carly, I was rather shocked to see a living replica of myself. She had enlarged her head to where 'I' was clearly bigheaded, shortened her hair and made it stick in directions even mine couldn't manage. She was decked out in full Quiddich robes with a massive Head Boy badge and sewn to the side of the robe under 'my' arm a small dummy dressed in Slytherin robes with 'X's in place of eyes. She was everything Lily ever hatefully called me, and though I could have been offended, I instead burst into hysterical laughter.

"You're Lily's worst nightmare!" I cracked up.

"Not my worst," Lily protested, blushing right up to her ginger roots.

Carly grinned. "You're the only one who's gotten it," she told me. "So far everyone gets that I'm James, but they don't realize that I'm Lily's James." My heart leapt to my throat and puttered there like a dying broomstick at Carly's use of possessive nouns. Who'd have thought a slight fluctuation in sentence structure could change so much.

"Prongs," Sirius asked with an ironic smile, "didn't you give up tormenting little Slytherin boys?"

I regained my focus and forced a frown. "You know, I thought I did," I told him, bringing a hand to my chin in the classic 'thinking' pose. "Lily, do you recall?"

Lily's eyes narrowed but she pursed her lips, trying to hide her amusement. "Yeah, I think I do. I'm pretty sure you renounced that."

"Hmm…" Sirius and I nodded at each other, exchanging a glance in which we essentially read each other's minds. No, we're not highly accomplished Legilimens, we just kind of have the same brain. I don't really know how it works, but so far we haven't had any issues understanding each other.

"You know, it seems to me you really do take all this Head Boy nonsense seriously, don't you James?" Sirius asked me as he strolled casually about the room.

"Oh, of course," I responded with too much gusto.

Sirius turned to Lily. "Don't you agree Miss Evans?"

Lily looked from Sirius, to me, and back to Sirius again. "Well yeah," she started. "I suppose—"

"And that whole bigheadedness spiel," Sirius interrupted, leaning against a doorframe, examining his nails as he spoke. "I'm disappointed in you lately. Just yesterday you tried to tell Slughorn I did all the work on our memory draught when in fact I slept on the desk. That's pretty modest, wouldn't you say Lily?"

Lily glared at him. "I mean, yeah, it seems like—"

Toinette giggled as Sirius cut her off again. "And Quiddich! Lily, don't you agree that if he really cared only about Gryffindor winning he would've made O'Leary our keeper?"

Shaking her head, Lily had no choice but to agree.

"And your hair," Sirius exclaimed, walking to me and ruffling it. He looked at Carly and then back at me. "You know, even I can't spin this one. Your hair really _is_ that bad."

Ducking an attempted blow to the head, Sirius dodged his way over to the food where he tried (and failed) to subtly spike the pumpkin juice. As the first knocks sounded at the portrait hole I knew this was going to be a good party.

"Okay Padfoot. It's time." I said resolutely later that night.

A bleary eyed Sirius allowed his head to roll to one side. He and Peter's cat had somehow become incredibly good friends—much to my amusement due to Padfoot's other…persona. They were settled contentedly in an armchair by the fire, not taking part in the party festivities. "Time for what?" he asked without looking up from the furry mound in his lap, crystallized pineapple stuck to his fake mustache.

With a dramatic flourish I whipped out the cassette tape I was hiding behind my back.

Sirius stared at me.

"It's _Guys and Dolls_!" I told him, waved the cassette eagerly as though frantic movement would increase Sirius's reading ability.

Sirius stared at me.

"An old movie!" I practically yelled.

Sirius stared at me.

"Frank Sinatra?" I reminded him quietly, defeated. "Old fashioned movies?"

"Ohhhhh," Sirius chimed in finally, smiling goofily. He looked at the cassette in my hand expectantly. He waited. "It's not very exciting." He stated eventually.

I laughed, giddy with anticipated cuddling with Lily time, sinking into a daydream. We would go to the Room of Requirement. I'd ask it for a room to watch muggle movies in. It would come equipped with comfy plush couches just big enough to fit two perfectly matched people. Lily would sigh in contentment as the credits start rolling and put her head on my shoulder. I'd put a finger beneath her chin and raise her lips to mine. Those perfect little lips…

"No Padfoot." I shook my head. "You have to put it in this machine thing and then it shows the movie."

"Huh," Sirius said, still staring at the tape as though he expected it to start tap dancing. "I guess it's more exciting when you're there. Where'd you get that anyways?"

"_Muggle Fascinate-ees Daily_." I answered matter of factly.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "That magazine for wizards who are obsessed with muggles? Gosh Prongs, you're long gone. Obsessed."

I drew back, offended. "Not obsessed," I insisted. "Fond." He shook his head at me again. "Lily will like it. I'm going to ask her to watch it with me. An un-date."

"An un-date?" Sirius asked me skeptically.

"Well, it's not in public, so it's not a date," I reasoned. "But it'll be just the two of us watching a romantic movie, so it's a little more than a friends-hanging-out thing."

Sirius laughed. "So when is this _un-date_ going down?" I didn't appreciate the mocking tone when he said un-date and gave him a vicious jab in the ribs to say so. Olivia didn't like that and took a swat at my hand and then leapt to the carpet in distain.

"Soon." I told a doubled-over Sirius, clutching his ribcage. "Hell, why not now?" I stood up. "Where's Lily?" I asked looking around the packed room eagerly. I couldn't see her through the crowd; she'd just been by the portrait hole talking to Remus when Abigail, a Ravenclaw he was interested in, arrived.

Sirius stood, finally over his unexpected rib attack and glanced around as well. "Uh Prongs…" he said, hesitantly. "She's, um. Well she's with—"

I turned to see where Sirius was looking. And saw O'Leary. With his hand next to Lily's head on the wall. Leaning over her. Looking in those gorgeous emerald eyes. Craning his neck. Kissing my Lily. Again.

I sank to the armchair in defeat.

Step Five never had a chance to succeed.


	7. Chapter 7

Ch. 7

_Step Six:_ _Practice piano A LOT and leave my door open so she can hear me. [November 10__th__-23__rd__]_

I pounded the keys of my little piano until my fingers went numb from the exertion and then some. I kept playing, a complicated and dramatic piece with several melodies intertwined, the kind of piece that would make it impossible for most pianists to think about anything but the rapid motion of their hands across the keyboard. James Potter is not most piano players.

O'Leary and Lily. O'Leary kissing Lily. O'Leary holding Lily. God damn _fucking_ O'Leary wins again.

What was it about him that kept drawing Lily to him? He was every aspect of my personality that she declared to hate sans all my winning Potter charm. But for some reason she'd taken him. And for some even more obscure reason she'd taken him back at our Halloween party. As I played my mind went grudgingly back to that night.

_I sank to the armchair in defeat and put my head in my hands. My whole body shuddered but my eyes stayed open, glued to my Lily, smiling and giggling with a drink in one hand and her other in the disgusting hand of Ben O'Leary. _

_The intensity of my gaze drew Lily's eyes but what I found there shocked me. Surprise. As though she didn't think it would hurt me to see them together. As though she didn't know that I'd been in love with her for the past six years._

_Lily looked away quickly but I could see she wasn't as invested in O'Leary's conversation now. Every now and then her eyes would flick in my direction in response to my persistent staring. I have no idea how long it took Toinette and Padfoot to drag me into my room, but I must have watched them together for at least half an hour._

_I didn't sleep that night. I didn't leave my room the following day, a Saturday. I didn't sleep Saturday night either._

As the piece came to an end I lurched up from the piano bench. Looking at the height of the sun in the sky I realized I'd been at it for over an hour. With a sigh I threw myself back on my bed, spread-eagled across the tangled sheets, allowing my mind to drift back into painful memories.

On Sunday morning Toinette and my Marauders came for me. They brought food pilfered from the kitchens and too much energy for my numb mind to comprehend. I didn't want to eat but I am a boy and eventually 48 hours of no sustenance will force any boy to cave.

"_James, this has to stop." Remus advised me, sitting down on my trunk and taking his glasses off to rub the bridge of his nose the way he always did when he was exhausted. The full moon was coming, I recalled with almost a twinge of guilt._

"_Honestly Prongs," Sirius sat down next to me on the bed. "I know how you feel about her, but she's just a girl." I didn't even bother punching him._

"_We miss you James," Peter piped in. I would have smiled weakly at that if I could've remembered how to work the muscles of my face._

_But it was Toinette who really got through. She just sat down on the opposite side of the bed as Sirius and took hold of my hand. She laid down next to me and put her head on my shoulder, hugging me with her free arm. It was only with Toinette next to me that I was able to breathe freely again._

_We laid like that for a few minutes and then she stood and guided me to the bathroom, the Marauders trailing us helplessly. Toinette turned on the shower for me and signaled to me that I should undress. Then she left the bathroom and closed the door quietly behind her._

_That shower was the most glorious experience of my young life, just barely beaten by the first time I rode a broom and the first time I saw Lily's fiery red hair. When I emerged there were clothes neatly folded on the counter, my favorite pair of worn in jeans and a pullover sweater. _

_Back in my room I found a note on my pillow._

Prongs,

We know you want some space but we just want to know that you're okay. We'll give you your time but you need to take care of yourself. We expect to see you at dinner tonight. Plus I think you owe Charlie a visit.

I recognized the handwriting as Sirius's but I knew Toinette had told him what to say. She was just the type of girl who you simply allowed to take charge as naturally as you cringe when McGonnagall says your name.

_With a sigh I agreed with the last bit of the note, I did need to visit my owl soon. Stowing my wand in my pocket and headed for the portrait hole, eyes determinedly _not_ looking in the direction of the door opposite mine._

I ground my teeth together as my mind flitted back to my trip to the Owlry. Of course, much to my unhappiness, I had met Lily there.

I stood in the window, looking out over the grounds of Hogwarts. It was early enough in the morning that frost still decorated the edges of the leaves and the blades of grass. The squid propelled itself quickly across the lake, probably trying to heat itself up. On my arm Charlie cooed softly, comfortingly. Somehow he always knew when I needed consolation I thought to myself as I stroked him absent-mindedly.

"James!" An all too familiar voice squeaked from behind me. "Err, hi!" Lily said in a voice two octaves above her normal range.

"Lily." I answered coolly, nodding my head but not turning to face her. "Hi yourself."

I could sense her pausing, standing in the doorway, biting those adorable lips and twisting a lock of hair in her precious little hands. "Are you," she gulped "upset with me?"

I closed my eyes to compose myself, then pasted on an almost happy face and turned to face her. "No," I answered evenly. "Not at all."

"Oh." Lily took half a step forward, still unsure of how to act. I couldn't help but think back to the last time we'd been in that tiny stone room, so calm and casual with each other, so tempted. "I must've been mistaken. It's just that I haven't seen you since the party." She hedged, towing the straw on the ground with one scruffy loafer, not meeting my eyes.

"I got food poisoning," I improvised. "I just stayed in my room to wait it out."

Lily smiled in relief. I could tell she didn't fully believe me but she was glad for the excuse. "That's horrible. But you're feeling better now?"

"I'm—getting by," I answered, not at all speaking about any kind of ingested bactoriums or whatever the hell muggles call them.

"I see." Lily took a full step into the room and held out an arm to Hippolyta. I watched as she kept her eyes as far from mine as possible. "Listen James." She finally met my gaze, albeit uneasily. "I didn't get a chance to answer you the other night. But yes, I'd like to be your friend."

I stared at her in confusion for a moment before recalling my casual question just before the Halloween party. So Lily wanted to be my friend. I looked back down at Charley and bit back my frustration. Six years of devotion and I get a reluctant friend. I wanted to scream and pull my hair out. I wanted to shake some sense into her. Mostly I just wanted to grab her and kiss her and beg her not to date O'Leary anymore. But a guy can only throw himself at the feet of a girl so many times.

But then I looked up. Then I saw Lily. She was dressed casually like me, but I could not for the life of me tell you what she was wearing, it just didn't register. She was so beautiful. She was Lily. I couldn't live without her in my life somehow, even if it was half the relationship I had dreamed it would be.

"I'd like to be your friend too, Lily." I answered her quietly. "But as a friend can I ask you a favor?"

Lily looked up, half eagerly, half concerned.

"I kind of came here looking for some alone time. Would you mind?"

Her eyes flashed. First with anger, then rejection, finally fading to resignation. "Yeah, of course James." She answered, pulling a letter from her pocket, attaching it to Hippolyta's leg and sending her out the window. "I'll see you around," she said and left.

I stared at the doorway for a long time after that. Then I rested my forehead against the stone window frame.

Lying on my back, I stared intently at the paisley pattern on the canopy of my four-poster. I knew I had to get to Quiddich practice soon, but I just didn't want to move my legs.

"Pity will get you no where," I told myself as I lurched off the bed.

"That's the spirit, dear," said the mirror.

"Prongs, buddy," Sirius pulled his broom up short next to mine. "You have to cool it down mate," he advised. "You've gotten the past 8 shots by Julia. You're going to hurt her if you keep throwing so hard; give the girl a break."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I answered him through gritted teeth, lying in spite of myself. I knew I was angry and I knew I became a more aggressive player when I was angry but I didn't want to admit that I was being too hard on my teammates.

Sirius shook his head, knowing me too well to argue. "It's getting late, why don't you call it a day? Everyone's been playing really well and we have ages till the next match. Besides, Ravenclaw are push-overs this year. Slytherin flattened them."

It was true; Slytherin had done a number on Ravenclaw the previous week. While I liked knowing our next match was going to be an easy one, facing Slytherin would be a challenge.

I nodded to Sirius. "Alright everyone, good work today. In fact, practice is canceled on Wednesday night. I want you all to use the time to catch up on sleep though and stay healthy. This is the time of year the flu and colds tend to kick in; I don't want to lose any of you for a dumb reason like that."

Still grumpy myself, I was surprised how palpable the contentment filling the locker rooms was as everyone contemplated having a week night to lounge in front of the Common Room fire and relax. In fact, by the time Sirius and I had taken long, hot showers and dressed for dinner I felt almost human again.

"So what's the strategy Prongs?" Sirius asked as I toweled off my soaking mop of hair one last time. We'd taken our time in the showers so we were the last two left in the changing rooms.

I frowned to myself as I attempted for about the ten millionth time to force that one clump of hair at the back of my head to lie flat. "I dunno yet Padfoot," I answered, somewhat befuddled. "I mean, like you said, we're not playing Ravenclaw for ages and they're not exactly good this year."

Sirius dramatically slumped down onto a bench and dropped his head into his hands. "I'm not talking about the bloody match!" he said exasperatedly. "Our strategy is obviously kick their smarmy little smarty pants arses straight back to the library."

Lily spends a lot of time in the library, I contemplated, phasing out of the conversation. Maybe I should've been sorted into Ravenclaw. Was it too late to change houses? Could you change houses?

"What are you gonna do about O'Leary swiping your girl again?" Sirius continued, cutting through my admittedly ludicrous contemplation.

"Do?" I asked, gut clenching around what felt like a solid block of ice that had suddenly materialized in my stomach.

Sirius stood up and patted my back, leading me to the door. "Come on now, you're a Marauder," he reminded me. "Don't tell me you've spent the past several days moping around like a dismissed house elf and you didn't even come up with a half decent plan to steal her back."

My silence was answer enough.

Sirius grimaced. "I don't know what I'm gonna do with you, mate," he admitted. "My top two pick me ups are Quidditch and girls. We just finished playing the former—a lot of good it did you too—and given the nature of your moodiness, I have a feeling the latter won't be too helpful either."

I looked at him, shrugging pathetically. "Lily frequently uses former-latter sentence construction," I stated sheepishly. "Usually whilst detailing reasons why she won't date me."

With a roll of his eyes Sirius came to a halt just before the doors to the Entrance Hall. He lounged upon the steps leading to the doorway with a grace even I had to be a little jealous of and gestured for me to join him.

"You love this girl," Sirius mused. "So you have to get her. It's just that simple."

"You're right, Padfoot," I answered sarcastically. "Six years of wooing down, definitely a simple process."

"Now, now," Sirius tutted. "In reality, you spent six years terrorizing her and about two months wooing her. To be honest, I'm somewhat amazed she hasn't taken out a restraining order on you yet. I think you may have to thank my girlfriend for that."

I shrugged. "There is some truth in that," I acquiesced.

"So you can't expect getting her to finally date you to be as easy as getting Tonya Abrams into a broom cupboard." I shot him a warning glare.

"Whoa there killer," Sirius said, sitting back and holding his hands up in surrender. "You know I haven't so much as looked at that girl since fifth year. "I am beyond content with Antoinette. Tonya simply served as a convenient comparison to this situation."

I sighed, running my hands through my hair and realizing a second too late that I'd undone all my attempted flattening in one fell swoop. I let my hands fall into my lap uselessly. "I know. I trust you. But I just don't think there's anything to be done about Lily. She only wants to be my friend, and compared to our past relations, I feel like this is the best I can hope for."

"Oh don't give me that bollocks!" Sirius shoved my shoulder, rather hard to be honest. It took all my generally admirable balance to maintain my perch on the steps next to him. "You're hoping for more and you're never going to stop hoping for more as long as that girl's heart is still beating. And possibly not even then, if it were Lily, I'm pretty sure you could become a necrophiliac."

"Alright, alright," I conceded. "So her and O'Leary's relationship's eating at me pretty bad but what else can I possibly do? I really thought those darn lists would work."

Sirius tossed his head, flicking his hair out of his eyes in the process. "Who says they won't?" he asked casually.

I turned to stare at him. "You mean I should just keep right on with the lists, regardless of her less than available status?"

Sirius chuckled. "Well let's think this through." He leaned back on his elbow and focused his eyes somewhere in the distance; I knew he was really thinking now, which, if you know that boy like I do, is a somewhat frightening prospect. "When she rejected you, you kept asking her out. When she told you to go screw yourself you kept asking her out. When she said she'd rather die than touch you, you kept asking her out. When she told you she wished you would just drop dead, you kept asking her out. So now, when she can actually tolerate your company, you're just going to give it up because some git with a superiority complex and a gargantuan ego has her temporarily infatuated?"

I stared at my palms sheepishly, eyes scouring the calluses and blisters on my palms. "But what more can I do? She's so skittish; I don't want to ruin what little civility we have between us. I'd rather be friends than go back the screaming matches, no matter how sexy she is when she really starts fuming."

Sirius chuckled. "Then be her friend," he advised. "Be a better friend than O'Leary is a boyfriend. She always goes on about how immature you are, but O'Leary's hardly adult in pretty much any of his actions. Lily's a smart girl, eventually she'll catch on to how pathetic he looks next to you."

"You know, that actually might work Padfoot." I beamed at him.

Sirius raised one eyebrow at me. "Your condescension is most appreciated," he grumbled sarcastically.

I wasn't listening. "This is brilliant." I leapt of the steps. "He's sure to screw up sooner or later, O'Leary's an idiot. I'll become her best friend so that when he does she'll come running to me for comfort and then in arms she'll realize it's written in the stars!"

"Mate," Sirius interrupted. "Lily hates divination almost as much as Toinette. I highly doubt she'll see anything about your relationship as star written."

I waved a hand at him. "Minor details, it's flawless!"

Sirius chuckled as he stood. "I'm glad we're somewhat agreed. Now it's time to get some eats."

I grinned and followed him into the school feeling more hopeful than I had since Halloween.

"BLACK! What are you DOING!" The entire class conversation buzzed to a halt.

Sirius spun in his seat and smiled calmly under McGonagall's hawk-like glare. "Why, simply attempting to elicit your dulcet tones, Professor," he answered. You could feel the entire class drawing their breath, anticipating the coming onslaught.

The teacher drew a long breath, closing her eyes for composure. Toinette silently pulled her chair away from Sirius, as though anyone in the room would believe that Sirius's equally mischievous girlfriend wasn't fully aware of his actions.

"Would you kindly return Mr. Pettigrew to his natural state?" McGonnagall asked with forced calmness in her voice. "You are supposed to be transforming parts of the _rats_, not your classmates." McGonagall naturally had no way of knowing how very rat-like Peter was.

Sirius shrugged as though it were nothing to him, and flicked his wand, returning Peter's oddly shovel shaped hands to their normal form. "As you wish, Professor," he stated smugly with a regal bow, quite an accomplishment considering his seated position.

"And you will also join me in detention this Friday night," Professor McGonnagall stated.

"I would be happy to come, but what on Earth are you serving detention for, Ma'am?" Sirius asked impetuously. I quietly thudded my head against the desk.

"Make that Friday and Saturday night," the professor added. "Don't make me add every Friday and Saturday for the rest of the month.

Recognizing defeat, Sirius merely nodded calmly.

"At least he knows when to stop," Lily whispered quietly to me, grasping one of my shoulders to keep me from inflicted further damage to my head. Not butterflies but huge arse hippogriffs fluttered around in my naval.

"You mean he knows when he's gone past where he should've stopped?" I asked sarcastically.

The corner of Lily's mouth twitched. "Close enough," she muttered, turning back to the textbook with a slight tinge of pink on her cheeks.

O'Leary had skipped transfiguration for the second time this week (much to my glee), leaving Lily partner-less once again. I had pounced on the opportunity, leaving Peter to work with Sirius and Toinette, and Remus with a few Hufflepuff prefects he was friendly with.

"_Secuiabeo_," Lily said, pointing her wand at a frantically squeaking rat inside the cage on our shared desk. The rat merely squeaked louder and its tail took on a slightly greenish tint.

"Here," I said, pulling the cage towards me. "You want to have more of a jabbing motion at the end of the movement. It's like you're drawing a circle with your wand tip and then poking the center of it. "_Secuiabeo_!" I said, smiling slightly as the rat's tail transformed into a miniature muggle garden hose, spouting water from the end and everything.

"Very good, Mr. Potter," McGonnagall said. "Now, Miss Evans."

Lily gulped and glanced towards me, smiling slightly at my encouraging nod. "_Secuiabeo_," she said, starting when the tail became one of those bright orange pipe cleaners muggles use in arts and crafts (that muggle studies class was really paying off).

"Well done!" Professor McGonnagall did her best to hide her surprise. "Five points to Gryffindor to both of you."

Lily grinned at me, as the professor walked away. "You know, I think that's the first time I've ever gotten points for Gryffindor in Transfiguration," she said.

I chuckled quietly, beaming on the inside. "You should partner with me in Transfiguration more often. I think the only times I haven't gotten house points are the days I didn't show up."

"I would accuse you of cockiness again if it weren't for the fact that I already know that's true," Lily replied with a sigh.

"Well thank goodness for that," I teased. "We can't have James Potter be accused of cockiness! It would ruin his whole reputation."

Lily bit back a retort as Professor McGonnagall called the class to attention.

"I want two scrolls of parchment on the proper incantation pronunciation and wand movement for the Partial Transfiguration spell from each of you except for the few of you who were able to properly perform the incantation," Professor McGonnagall said. "Due when we meet next on Friday. This includes you Mr. Black, the goal was to transform part of the rat, not your partner."

I lifted Lily's bag off the ground and handed it to her amidst the scraping of chairs and the general melee of students hurrying out of class for the afternoon.

"Thanks, James," Lily said, smiling up at me as she took her bag. "For the spell help too, I really don't have time to do an assignment for McGonagall on top of everything else right now."

"Not to worry," I answered. "I'd hate for you to be so busy that I'd have to patrol the halls alone at night."

"Why? Poor, little Potter wouldn't be scared, would he?" Lily smirked, refusing to meet my gaze. I decided to go along with it.

"Oh petrified!" I gasped, placing a hand melodramatically over my heart. "I'd probably end up huddling in the corner of a broom cupboard in North Tower."

Lily laugh was prematurely cut off as she spied O'Leary leaning casually against the wall at the end of the corridor. "Uh, I should go, James," she said hurriedly, hardly looking at me as she stalked down the hall to give O'Leary a tentative peck on the cheek.

"No problem, Lily," I answered, knowing she couldn't hear me, or if she could, she chose not to notice. She was out of my reach.

"You'll get there, Prongs," Sirius muttered behind me. He gave me a pat on the back and steered me away down the other end of the corridor.

"So you've given up?" Samantha asked me half-interestedly as she slopped mashed potatoes onto her plate. "You're just not going to ask her out anymore?"

Johnny shook his head but wisely refrained from commenting.

"It's not giving up exactly," I defended myself, smiling at the oddity of explaining my wooing strategy to a bunch of first years. "I'm just biding my time."

"It does seem a little odd that she just happened to choose the one boy who has an even worse reputation than you," Sam added thoughtfully, now doling copious amounts of butter onto her potatoes.

Johnny laughed. "Odd? It's cracked up, it is," he said, chomping on a chicken wing. "The girl clearly doesn't know what she wants."

"You know," I started, "If it weren't for the fact I completely agree with you, I'd probably charm that chicken wing right up your nose."

Johnny laughed again, grinning at me across the table. "I'm glad you're able to see reason then," he said. "This is delicious."

"Ick, you don't say?" Samantha commented sarcastically, eyeing the relish with which Johnny was devouring the chicken.

"Did you ever think she's attracted to O'Leary _because_ he's like you, rather than in spite of it?"

We all stopped eating and stared at Meredith.

"So you're saying that everything she's ever claimed she hates about me she really loves?" I asked incredulously.

"That's fair idiotic, Mer," Sam answered.

Johnny just kept staring.

Meredith blushed but persisted. "No, that's not it exactly, James," she answered. "Those are all traits that she certainly dislikes about you, but she knows that's only part of you. Lily cares about you James, possibly as much as you care about her. O'Leary reminds her of you, and that attracts her to him, even though deep down she knows that all you two have in common are your negative aspects."

I frowned, trying to work it out. "So then why wouldn't she just date me and have all the positive stuff with the crap she puts up with for him?" I asked.

Meredith's brow furrowed as she sought the best way to explain. "For the same reason you dated every other redhead in the school up until this year. Because she's starting to really care about you she's afraid of what would happen between you. Any relationship you and Lily have will always be dramatic and high-stakes; it's easier for her to date a more simplified version of you than the actual you. Certainly you could make her happier, but you also have the power to make her that much more miserable than anything O'Leary could do to her."

"Meredith," Johnny started calmly. "I think you've finally lost it."

"I think it's romantic!" Sam exclaimed.

I shook my head and glanced down the table at Lily. She was sipping her peppermint tea disinterestedly as she perused a spellbook I had never seen before. She must have gotten it from the library for some personal reading; she did strange things like that sometimes. As I watched, Lily tucked an amber curl behind her ear, and licked her lips, flipping a page.

Suddenly she looked up and met my eyes, having sensed my gaze. I fought the urge to guiltily look back down at my plate and pretend I hadn't been caught staring dumbly at her and instead held her eyes fiercely, trying to communicate everything she wouldn't let me say through a simple look.

My mouth was half open to say I don't even know what when she suddenly looked back away again. She turned to O'Leary who had grabbed her wrist to get her attention and was now telling her some story using extravagant hand gestures.

I closed my eyes in defeat. "There's one problem with that uplifting idea, Meredith. Lily doesn't care about me," I said. "Not as anything more than a friendly acquaintance at least."

I was playing a low, smooth jazz piece when she came to me, shining like a goddess but so natural she could be nothing but human. The song filled the room with feeling, sensual ease drifting through the air and warming every corner of the shadowy room, welcoming her.

"Would you mind if I joined you?" she asked from the door, hesitating just and inch outside my room. "Your music is beautiful but I couldn't hear it very well from my room."

I nodded, lifting only one hand from the piano to gesture to the plush window seat covered in pillows. It was my favorite place to sit and think without being disturbed and the plethora of pillows made it sinfully comfortable. "Please, come on in."

Lily started slowly across the room and sank into the window seat, tucking her legs up in front of her. My eyes followed her across the room whilst my hands continued their slow key strokes. Lily produced the same book I had seen her reading at dinner the previous night and opened it, settling deeper into the pillows.

I looked down to the keyboard before she could catch me staring again and forced myself to focus on the music once more, drowning out all thoughts of joining her on the window seat and tucking her beautiful burnished head comfortably into my chest. I closed my eyes and lost myself in the notes, pushing Lily from my mind.

I don't know how long I played, slowly changing from one long since memorized, easy jazz piece to the next but when I next looked up, Lily had fallen asleep in the window seat, the book half out of her lap. I charmed the keys to keep playing and silently rose from my seat and approached her sleeping figure.

Kneeling before her, staring at her sleeping face, I could see things I'd never been given the opportunity to witness before in her features. Lily looked tired; even as she slept I could see the faintest traces of worry lines around her mouth and a purple tinge of bags beneath her eyes.

Her nose twitched as a lock of hair tickled her cheek. I reached out a hand to gently brush it away and she subconsciously turned her head into it, nuzzling her cheek into my palm. I froze, bound by the utter bliss her very presence could inspire in me by so simple and unintentional action.

Gently, I pulled the book from her grasp with my free hand and placed it on the nearby piano bench, the whole time maintaining my slight contact with her. Pulling my wand from my pocket, I flicked my wand to turn down the covers on my bed. Slowly, so as not to wake her, I slipped my arms under Lily's frame and carried her to the bed, sliding her under the covers and tucking them in around her. With a flick of my wand I extinguished the lamps, plunging us both into partial darkness.

Again, I couldn't say how long I stood there watching her in the moonlight. When my eyes had finally had their fill, I gently kissed her forehead, turned and walked to our common room, and curled up to go to sleep on the couch.

I couldn't care less if Step Six succeeded. I was utterly happy.


	8. Chapter 8

Ch. 8

_Step Seven: Keep playing Quiddich (easy). [November 24__th__-December 7__th__]_

_Oh God, no! Oh please let me be imagining! Any power that be please don't let that be Lily!_ I mentally shouted my thoughts to the heavens as I raced across the grounds at midnight. _How could I have been so foolish? How could I have caused this! It was stupid. Stupid, and selfish and arrogant and everything she'd ever accused me of being._

Memories replayed over and over in my mind as I sped, fast as four magical hooves could carry me, trying to control the destruction I'd already created in this one short night.

_Thank god all my Quiddich training keeps me in such good shape, meaning my stag form is particularly healthy as well_, I thought, bitterly appreciating the irony of how this step was playing itself out.

I should've seen it coming. I could've seen it coming. I should have seen it coming.

"Prongs, I'm bored," Sirius said, lounging in the head's common room. "We haven't done anything interesting in ages. Can't we sneak out of the school? Or steal something? Or harass some Death Eaters Anonymous members?"

I was only half listening as I stood by the window, watching Lily pacing the grounds outside by the lake, frequently running her hands through her hair in obvious frustration; a movement rather reminiscent of my frequent hair ruffles, I thought dotingly through my worry.

"You don't suppose they've had another row, do you?" I asked Sirius hopefully, mindless of the fact that he couldn't see Lily outside.

Regardless, he knew who I was talking about. "Yeah actually," he answered nonchalantly. "Toinette said he was trying to recommend what she had for breakfast or something and she flipped, claiming he was trying to control her."

"Dirty git," I muttered. "I bet he was practically force feeding her porridge. She hates porridge. The texture reminds her of ground up doxy droppings."

Sirius chose to ignore my somewhat exaggerated rant. "Do you think we could fill Slughorn's crystallized pineapple with gastrous juice again to make him fart incessantly for days again? That was a hoot!" he asked.

"Maybe I should go talk to her," I mused. "Tell her I'd never force her to eat icky porridge."

Sirius sighed, finally acknowledging that he'd have to talk me down before I'd join in any of his pranks. "Prongs, mate, you've gotta relax on this hero tendency."

"I don't have a hero tendency!" I exclaimed.

"Oh but you do," Sirius continued. "You always want to sweep in and save the day. The whole point of the new plan was to let her come to you. You're there for her cause you're her friend but you're not at her feet every second any more. When you really need me or Moony or Wormtail we don't just magically show up at your side do we? You find us and then we help you but first you find us."

"That does have some logic to it," I remarked.

"If she needs you, she'll come to you," Sirius said. "Now, more pressing matters, I need you. I'm bored, and I need my best mate to help alleviate it."

After one last long glace I turned from the window and gave Sirius my full attention. "Okay so possible activities," I paused to think. "We can go to the kitchens and nick some food."

"Too easy."

"We can practice Quiddich; that is my objective for this period."

"We practice every night for _three hours_, Prongs. I'm not putting up with any more of your captain Nazi-ism when I'm not required on the pitch."

"We can turn all the teachers robes tie-die."

"Done it too many times."

"We can rob Filch's stash of forbidden objects."

"Did that with Wormy last night."

I was amazed at that one. I knew for a fact that my cloak was in my trunk in my room and Lily and I hadn't heard a peep while we'd been patrolling the previous night. "We can trap Mrs. Norris in a suit of armor again."

Sirius sighed and pulled himself into a sitting position. "I suppose that'll do," he said. "I never do get sick of tormenting that awful animal." He stood and exited into my bedroom and I heard the hurried shuffling around as he searched my trunk for the Marauder's Map.

"Pads?" I called.

"Hm?" he asked as he re-entered the room, pointing his wand at the map and muttering "I solemnly swear I'm up to no good."

I stood and followed him to the portrait hole. "You're sure I shouldn't go talk to her?"

Sirius sighed and sloped one arm sympathetically around my shoulder, giving me a shake for good measure. "I'm sure," he said.

_It had already been heading to shit even then,_ I growled inwardly. _I should've known, I shouldn't have listened._

"Good kitty," I said quietly almost to myself, shooting Sirius a warning glance to keep him from hooting with laughter. "That's it, kitty, almost there."

With slow deliberation, Mrs. Norris stalked the field mouse I had transfigured from one of my trainers. We had set an invisible trap for her just a few feet further; I just had to get her to follow the fake mouse into it.

"Almost, come on," Sirius urged under his breath. Finally with a snap the invisible trap materialized around the cat and the mouse transformed back into my shoe. Cackling, Sirius tipped the spitting cat into the neck of a suit of armor and tossed me my shoe.

As we walked away, Sirius patted my shoulder. "You know, that never gets old," he mused as the sounds of the yowling cat faded into the background. "I'm even a cat person, but that monster is just so fun to torment."

I chuckled in response, shaking my head at the strange thought of Padfoot being a cat person. "You're right. I think she might be part chimera."

"Spawn of cat inferi maybe."

"Or a mutant thestral."

Sirius led the way into the empty Gryffindor common room and threw himself on the couch. "Though enjoyable, I'm feeling like this little escapade has only whetted my appetite for further rebelliousness."

"What did you have in mind?" I asked him, sitting next to Oliva on the couch. She glowered at me and leapt to the floor with a hiss, climbing into Sirius's lap instead. Even though she was necessary to maintain my story for Lily, I was regretting buying that animal for Peter.

Sirius sat forward and I knew from his face he was about to propose something really dangerous, and for the first time in while, I felt the tingling excitement of imminent rule breaking sparkling in his eyes reflected in my gut.

"Let's run in the forest tonight," he said. Sensing my hesitation he continued. "Look, nothing's ever happened before, even when it came close. We can keep Moony in check. I'm sick of just being in the shack all the time. We haven't really run in _months_."

I was so tempted by his proposal. It was so easy, and so free. He was right, we'd been extremely careful ever since Snape…

"We could hurt someone," I said lamely, wanting so badly to agree.

Knowing he'd as good as won the fight already, Sirius sat back smugly. "You need this, Prongs. It'll do you good to run off some of your frustration."

He was right, I was always on edge because of everything with Lily and O'Leary and Quiddich practice. Slowly a huge grin spread across my face, so when I met Sirius's eyes, he knew we'd be running tonight.

Everything had led to this. I knew it was my own fault for agreeing so willingly to Sirius's plan. Had we learned nothing by almost killing Snivellus? We were so young, so arrogant, so assured of our own power, but now I was trying to outrun a werewolf, a hungry werewolf, to save the woman I loved.

Lily leapt to her feet as she heard the hooves approaching. She stood, terrified as I thundered to a halt in front of her. It suddenly occurred to me that I had no idea what to do now. I couldn't speak to her, not in Prongs form, but I didn't want to risk transforming either.

In the distance I heard a howl, louder than it'd been before. I prayed Padfoot was keeping Moony occupied, otherwise they'd be own us in minutes.

Hesitantly, I stepped one hoof forward, hoping she'd run for the castle and out of danger, but as always, Lily surprised me. She stepped closer too. Gently, staring into my eyes, she raised a hand to stroke one antler, her finger just barely making contact.

"I won't hurt you," she whispered, stepping close and stroking my flank so, so softly.

For a moment, I could almost forget the imminent danger she was in. Of course, Lily didn't know it was me, but it was so easy to pretend that she really was consciously looking into my eyes with that amount of wonder and awe.

Another howl, closer still, I snapped out of my reverie. Hurriedly, I tried to push Lily towards the castle, prodding her with my antlers.

"What?" She stepped back and stared at me confusedly, but showed no signs of moving.

Why did she have to be here? Why, tonight of all nights, was she sitting outside in the cold by the frozen lake? Again, I tried to push her, harder now, more forcefully, but again she stepped out of range, this time crossing her arms and glaring.

"I was here first, you know," she said, staring me down. "You can't have the lake all to yourself, you bossy animal."

In another situation I would have found her hilarious, but the humor was lost as I heard snapping branches behind me in the forest. They would be here so soon, Padfoot couldn't fight him off alone.

Knowing there was no other way, and damning the consequences, I changed form becoming a man, and an unclothed one at that, right in front of her.

Lily gasped, her face a mixture of amazement, fear, and betrayal. "James?" she breathed, barely a whisper. She blushed scarlet as she glanced down at my body and then back up at my face.

"Lily, get out of here," I ordered, my voice hoarse. "Run. Now."

"I—what?" she asked, looking both offended and startled.

"You're in danger." I stepped closer, grabbing her arms and resisting the urge to shake her. "Please Lily, I'll explain everything but you have to get back inside the castle." I glanced over my shoulder at another howl. "You can't get hurt."

She didn't seem to be comprehending what I was saying, and this was something because I'd never met a smarter witch or wizard than my Lily. "But, you're an animagus," she stated. "How? Why? You can't possibly be legal—" she trailed off staring at me in horror.

"Please Lily!" I yelled into her face. "There's way worse things at stake here than the law. Run!"

She stepped back from me, pulling out of my grip. I almost sighed in relief until I heard a low growl behind me. My stomach dropped as I saw Moony, crouching at the edge of the trees, staring ravenously at Lily.

All three of us were silent for a moment, then he lunged.

"RUN!" I screamed, mid-transformation, leaping into Moony's claws, buying her time.

Lily shrieked and raced for the castle. Dissatisfied with me, Moony threw me off, intending to pursue her, but I planted me hooves firmly in his path, hoping Lily was a fast runner. It would take her ten seconds to reach the safety of the castle? Fifteen? Thirty? Surely I could hold him off at least that long? I had to.

With another growl, Moony lunged at me, jagged teeth nashing at me, trying to get a grip on my throat. I fended him off, antlers down, ignoring the steady flow of blood that was oozing sluggishly from several deep gashes in my sides.

Was she there yet? At least half way? I didn't dare turn to look.

The wolf in him having completely taken over, Moony sensed my lack of focus and tackled my body, slamming me to the ground.

Agony flashed suddenly as he slashed open my flank again, and everything went dark for a moment as I struggled for consciousness. I fought furiously to get to my feet. _I have to last just a little longer, _I prayed to myself._ She has to be safe._

Satisfied that I was no longer an opponent, Moony turned, growling and racing after Lily.

I stood and chased after him but I knew I could never get there fast enough. I'd lost too much blood. I was too weak.

She was almost there, but Moony was gaining on her. It felt like my hooves didn't even touch the ground, but I wasn't fast enough. I knew I could never be fast enough. He was almost on her and she was just reaching the steps to the doors.

_She'll never make it_, I realized, and the agony in my heart burned far more and far hotter than any cut could. I kept running but I knew it was all over. My love was about to die. I was about to die.

Moony was just feet behind her when furious barking interrupted my panic as I watched, Padfoot tackling him to the ground. In the light from the castle I could see that he had several deep cuts in his sides too, doubtlessly inflicted while I'd struggled to get Lily to leave.

With a boom, the doors to the Entrance Hall slammed closed and I knew Lily was safe. Still terrified, I used my antlers to throw Moony away from Patfoot, sighing with relief as the yelping werewolf took off into the woods, unwilling to fight two such persistent opponents.

Turning back to Sirius I saw that he had already turned back into a human, and he was covered in cuts. I transformed as well, cringing at the sight of my bloody body. We stared at each other without speaking, eyes blank with horror and what we had almost allowed to happen. There were no words for that feeling.

A rat raced out of the shadows and Peter appeared, staring at us with fear. "We should get inside," he said, looking with fear towards the trees. "He could come back."

Silently we grabbed the clothes that we had stashed in the bushes and headed up to the castle to clean out our wounds.

Step 7 was anything but a success.


	9. Chapter 9

Ch. 9

Step 8: Be helpful and carry her books for her. [December 8th-21st]

It was five in the morning when I crept my way back to the Heads' dorm. Peter had needed to smuggle healing supplies out of the hospital wing and we had a lot of bloody clothes to dispose of.

I hadn't told Peter and Sirius about transforming in front of Lily. By now, Ministry officials could already be on their way to the castle to arrest us for becoming unregistered animagi but I had to hope that Lily wouldn't turn me in.

I tried to convince myself that it would destroy Remus if he'd hurt or even killed anyone, particularly Lily, a friend. Indeed, it would, but I knew that my reasoning in betraying my friends to save her had been wholly self-serving. Protecting Remus was only an excuse I devised afterwards to ease my own guilt.

I couldn't live without her. Even if she hated me, even if she never spoke to me or saw me again, just knowing she was alive would be enough. For me, Lily's safety was worth betraying the name Marauder, the bond that was supposed to go beyond even death.

I'd never been more ashamed by my choices.

I'd never been more relieved by their consequences.

Rosalie gave me a funny look for coming in so late, but she was too sleepy to really harass me. I slipped silently through the portrait hole, hoping against hope that Lily wouldn't hear me. I was halfway to my room when I saw her, curled up on the couch with a discarded book on the floor next to her. She was still in the clothes she'd been wearing by the lake; by the looks of it, she'd waited all night for me in that chair.

I was torn: I didn't want to wake her but I couldn't leave her like that, all cramped up on the couch without even a blanket. Reasoning that I'd moved her before without waking her, I slipped my arms gently under her, amazed at how nicely she seemed to fit against my body.

With relief I saw that her door was slightly ajar, I wouldn't have to put her in my bed again and have to explain why. I had a feeling I would have more than enough explaining to do when she awoke.

Gently I laid Lily down on the bed and pulled the covers over her. I sighed in relief as I stood, watching her continue to sleep.

I was halfway to the door when I heard her murmur, almost silently, "James."

I froze, ready for the diatribe, inwardly cringing already, but when I looked back, her eyes were still closed. "Lily?" I whispered, heart stopping when her lips curved in a smile.

She sighed and rolled onto her side, nestling deeper into her pillows, and I realized she was still sleeping. I couldn't resist, I stepped closer to the bed and crouched next to her, watching her face.

"I love you so much, Lily," I whispered, cupping my hand gently around her cheek as I would a baby animal. "But I know what I feel now is nothing compared to how I could love you if you would let me." I stroked her cheek bone gently with my thumb, "Please just let me."

Lily smiled in her dreams, and I rued the fact that I could never say that to her awake. She wouldn't let me, and somehow, I didn't know if I was brave enough even if she did. Kissing her forehead, I walked to the bathroom to try and shower away the horror of the night.

Lily was waiting for me when I got up in the morning.

Sitting on the same couch she'd been on when I'd found her earlier that morning, she was dressed comfortably in pajama shorts and a sweatshirt, legs curled underneath her body. Though I may be an expert on Lily facial expressions, this one I couldn't read.

"Um, hi…Lily," I said. I looked at the floor, unsure of where to start.

It wasn't until her arms were wrapping around my waist that I realized she'd even moved from the couch. Her soft arms around me were pure ecstasy. Tentatively, I hugged her back, burying my face in her auburn hair, so grateful to have an opportunity to do this when I'd so nearly lost her.

"You saved my life," she whispered, stepping back and looking up at me. "I was so worried all night that you weren't going to come back."

I shrugged, taken aback by her friendliness. "I wasn't going to let you die," I told her honestly. "I actually thought you were going to be mad at me."

"Mad at you?" She narrowed her eyes, "James, you almost died for me. Surely you don't think I'm that heartless?"

I smiled ruefully. "Our track record of seeing eye to eye isn't exactly a good one," I reminded her.

Lily smiled back. "True," she admitted. "But this time I'm fully willing to acknowledge that I am very much in your debt, what do you want?"

It took me a moment to process what she was offering. "Whoa," I said, sticking my hands in hips, surreptitiously holding up the towel around my waist. "An open debt with Lily Evans? What to ask for?" I teased.

"James," she said warningly, though I could sense a hint of a smile in her tone.

I smiled but sat down, staring at my hands. Here it was: I finally had my golden opportunity to get Lily to go on a date with me. She was in my debt, and surely a few hours of one of her evenings was worth her life.

But my mind wandered over to the Gryffindor tower, where my best friends were sleeping, unaware that their biggest secret had been revealed.

"I want you to keep it a secret," I said, not looking up. "You can't tell anyone that I'm, that we're animagi. You have to trust me that we didn't do it just to pull one over on the ministry. We had to."

I finally looked up and saw Lily smiling at me. She sat down next to me on the couch. "James, I offered you anything and you asked for the one thing I would have done anyways?" She laughed, I relished the sound. "I know about Remus."

I looked up at her, horror struck.

Lily lifted one eyebrow at me. "Did you really think I was that clueless?" she asked. "I told you, I spent years trying to catch you and the Marauders at your pranks. It was impossible for me to not realize Remus mysteriously took ill every full moon and the rest of you were always exhausted and occasionally bruised the next morning. I never imagined you'd gone all the way to becoming animagi, but I knew Remus was a werewolf and you were all somehow involved."

I stared at her for a few seconds, amazed and terrified. "How long?"

For the first time, she looked a little frightened. "The end of fifth year," she answered. "I'd been suspicious for a while but it was all Severus would talk about and eventually I put two and two together. I tried to distract him from it, I knew he'd only use it against Remus and he didn't deserve that."

I bit my lip, sitting back into the sofa. "Well then, so much for us being so secretive," I muttered darkly. I didn't want to think about Snivellus and my Lily as friends, particularly discussing on of my closest friends' darkest secret.

"James." Lily's voice drew my eyes back to hers. "I mean it. I owe you for what you did last night. No one's ever done anything like that for me before. I want to repay you."

I was ready to just refuse her, happy that she seemed to trust me now, but then I thought of the list. I smiled mischievously at her and was thrilled to see her smiling back at me. "You have to let me carry your books for you," I told her. "To every class. Without exception. From now until Christmas break."

Lily laughed then, her full bodied beautiful laugh that I'd heard so many times before when she was with Toinette or Carly or even occasionally Remus. "That's really all you want?" she asked. "How many times have you asked me out and I'm finally obligated to say yes and you want to carry my books?"

I smiled at her, grabbing her hand and pulling her closer in spite of myself. "Lily," I started seriously. "When I finally convince you to go out with me, I want you to do so completely of your own free will. Not because you have to."

She froze, furrowing her brow. "You know," she said, half frowning, half smiling. "I'm starting to believe you've really meant it all these years."

"That's all I can ask for."

Lily was waiting for me in our Common Room on Monday morning. Her auburn curls were pulled up in a messy bun, a few loose curls framing her delicate cheekbones and exquisite eyes. Even in the frumpy school uniform she looked like she had stepped out the glossy pages of Witch Weekly's fashion section.

"Good morning, James," Lily said, barely above a whisper. She smiled shyly out from under her extraordinarily long eyelashes and held a small stack of books out towards me.

It a moment for my swollen tongue to remember how to move, let alone form noises and furthermore, words. "Good morning, Lily," I quickly regained my composure, running a quick hand through my hair. "You're looking ravishing today, as always."

I took the stack of books from her, relishing the very fetching blush that illuminated her cheeks. Then I registered the weight of the books in my hands. "Lily," I growled.

She blushed even deeper. "What?"

"These are _not_ all your books." I shifted the stack in my hands. "We have all the same classes, Lily, and this weighs nowhere near as much as all of mine."

She frowned guiltily. "Fine." She pulled a miniscule stack of books out of her skirt pocket and pointed her wand at them, immediately returning them to their full size. She always was better at silent incantations than me.

With my most charming Potter grin I summoned my own books. "Shall we?" I held out my arm towards the portrait hole.

"We shall," Lily said, returning my grin wholeheartedly and leading the way out of the dorm.

"Good morning, Rosalie," we called at the same time as we headed down the corridor.

Lily did a double take and I pretended to be surprised as well. "That was weird," she chuckled. "Imagine, the two of us speaking in synchronization like that."

"Next thing you know, we'll be finishing each other's sentences and buying matching towel sets for the bathroom," I joked, knowing that I was pushing into dangerous territory.

Lily stifled a smile. "Careful James," she teased, elbowing me in the side playfully. "People will start to think I don't despise you," she finished in a whisper, leaning towards me conspiratorially.

I heard voices around the corner, clueless students about the interrupt this perfect morning I was having with her. "Would that really be so terrible?" I asked half joking, half serious, grabbing her wrist without thinking and pulling her around to face me. Suddenly my heart was racing in my throat, my palm felt sweaty grasping her tiny hand and vision had been magnified a hundredfold so I could see every eyelash swish as she blinked in surprise. I needed her so badly in that moment. "Do you really set so much store in upholding this warzone you've had going against me for so long."

Lily met my gaze without least as much energy. Her chest heaving and her eyes the brightest green I'd ever seen. With a plunging sensation in my stomach I realized we were only inches apart, far too close for mere friends, and I wanted more than anything to make that distance even smaller. "James," she murmured, part admonition, part plea, but for what, I hadn't the slightest idea. "I didn't mean to—" she trailed off, helplessly.

I groaned inwardly, breathing deeply of the heady scent that was so overpowering at this nonexistent distance. Slowly, I backed her up to the corridor wall, my hand slipping from her wrist to her hip. Staring deeply into her eyes the entire time, asking her silently if this was alright, I leaned in, finally closing my eyes in the face of imminent bliss…

"Lily, there you are!" Toinette came flying around the corner. "Oh!" She spun around and made to leave as I jumped away from Lily as though she had suddenly transformed into a cross-dressing Snivellus.

"Antoinette! Hi!" Lily breathed, beat red. "Um, Jame—_Potter_ and I were just discussing, um…"

"Non-verbal spells," I interjected. "And the danger of thinking a spell you don't mean to cast once you become proficient at them." I smiled deceptively. "Lily, here accidentally cast a summoning charm on me, and I all too willingly took advantage of it."

Toinette didn't look entirely fooled, but I was the only person who could ever lie to her. If only Lily would stop looking so god damned (adorably) guilty, it would've been no work at all. "Right," she said hesitantly. "Well Lily," she continued, "Ben's been asking me all morning where you are and I can't deal with him anymore. He's all yours."

A thousand banshees screamed bloody murder in my head at the mention of that name. I was so close to having her but still so far. "Right," Lily answered awkwardly. "Then I'll just go see about him." I sensed her glancing over at me but I kept my eyes trained on the cracks in the flagstone in front of me so as not to show the brutal pain in my face. She hesitated a moment then walked away.

"James." Toinette stepped up to me, putting her hands on my shoulders. "What game are you playing?"

I looked up instantly, meeting her eyes in fury. "Game?" I demanded, pulling out of her grip. "She's the one playing with _me_! One second she's sweet, then demanding, then flirty, then meek, then furious, then awkward, then friendly, then distant. If she wore a mood ring it'd just be tie-die at the rate she changes emotions."

Toinette, listened to my rant patiently and waited for several seconds to be sure I was finished. "You know you'll never get her with seduction," she said. "If you could she would've given in to you years ago."

I sighed, my anger leaving me as quickly as it had arrived. "You're right," I told her. "As always. Let's eat," I said, throwing an arm around her shoulder, wincing as her shoulder blade dug into my arm. "Jesus woman! You could use the food, you bag of bones!" Now that I was paying attention, I could see that she looked paler, more gaunt.

"I actually already ate," she told me, not meeting my eyes.

"Toinette," I pulled her chin up till she met my gaze. "What's wrong? Are you sick?" I whispered.

She frowned. "No, not really," she told me. "Just a flu or something. I was actually just going to see Madame Pomphrey for some Pepperup potion."

"Do you want me to come with you?" I asked, brow furrowing. Antoinette always had a fantastic immune system. As children she always sat in bed with me telling me stories when I had dragon pox or scrofulungus or unicorn fever but amazingly never catching the diseases herself.

Toinette laughed, the warm color I remembered returning to her haggard face. "James, I could never allow you to skip a meal. You'd be about as pleasant as a pregnant blast-ended skrewt if I did. Besides," she added glancing down at the handful of books I carried with a sly grin, "Lily will be needing her books." With that she turned and flitted down the hallway.

I hesitated for a moment and then let her go, walking to the Great Hall. Madame Pomphrey would sort her out. Break was approaching and she would get plenty of sleep then to heal up.

As usual, breakfast was a raucus and entertaining event. Someone had set his friend's robes on fire with some odd, ruby red flames at the Hufflepuff table and McGonnagall was scolding him furiously as the flame-ee attempted to put himself out.

Shaking my head, I walked to where Lily was seated, a seats before the Marauders. O'Leary was across from her but she was reading the Daily Prophet and clearly not listening to his story. As I walked behind her she sensed my approach and looked up, instantly blushing again and knocking over her orange juice.

"Morning," I said calmly, taking a seat between her and Remus. O'Leary stared at me, dumbfounded. In truth, it wasn't all that different from his normal facial expression. Then again, it was exactly the same expression, but he had stopped talking about himself, which definitely was a deviation from his normal.

"Here are your books, Lily," I said, placing them on the table between us and quickly picking up a piece of toast and applying liberal amounts of jam.

A piece of egg dropped off of O'Leary's fork, frozen halfway between his plate and mouth.

"Anything interesting happening?" I inquired casually, gesturing at the paper in Lily's hands.

"Not much," Lily squeaked, quickly taking a deep sip of her orange juice.

I heard Remus chuckle quietly at my side, too soft for anyone else to hear. He was enjoying my nonchalance as much as I was. "You'll like this article," he said, handing me his copy of the paper. "On-going debate about the legality of automatic braking charms in Quiddich brooms."

"Mmm," I toned, taking the paper and reading it, taking a huge gulp of my coffee in case O'Leary flipped the table.

"Lily," O'Leary said, apparently regaining the use of his windpipes. Unfortunately. "Why did _he_ have your books?" He asked in a furious whisper, clearly wishing I couldn't hear him but unable to wait until they could be alone. I relished the venom with which he referred to me. His hurt ego couldn't hurt anywhere near as much as the dull ache in my chest, but knowing he was unhappy made my misery a little easier to bare.

"Well he—um, he…"

"Lost a bet," I interrupted, saving Lily for the second time that morning. She turned to look at me aghast. "We had a little wager going on the Ravelclaw Slytherin Quidditch match and I lost so I owed her a favor. I'm carrying her books for her for the duration of the semester." I smiled winningly at Lily, "With pleasure, of course."

O'Leary stammered for a moment before managing to mutter, "But Lily doesn't like Quiddich."

I shrugged. "Shows what you know," I answered, popping a sausage in my mouth and standing up. "We gotta go, Lils," I said, noting the way O'Leary cringed at my improvised nickname.

"Lils?" she said sarcastically, but she stood nonetheless. "He's right," she said to O'Leary, the kindness and apology in her voice slashing at my cool for a moment. "We have to get to Muggle Studies. Professor Ecklund asked everyone to be early this week." I was impressed with her lie in spite of myself. I knew Lily could lie almost as well as me but so far this morning she'd been pulling at straws so much I'd almost forgotten.

I followed her away from the table with a smug smile on my face. But it wouldn't last long.

As soon as we were in the Entrance Hall she turned on me. "What exactly do you think you're doing, Potter?" she demanded. So we were back to surnames? "Flaunting to Ben that you're carrying my books for me? And you didn't even tell him the real reason why! This whole thing was your idea, not mine!" She furiously ripped the books from my arms, hugging them to her chest like a favorite teddy bear.

I pinched the bridge of my nose, feigning frustration, knowing it would egg her on. "And how exactly do you think your precious little Benny-Boo would react to knowing what had really happened? That you gave me an entirely open invitation to ask any favor from you? I could've asked you to dump him, Lily!" By the end of my rant I actually was getting angrier with her in spite of myself. I covered for her twice already this morning and she was worried about how it was going to screw up her shite relationship with her shite boyfriend.

"I saved your arse in there, Lily!" I reminded her. "And not for the first time this morning either." I watched the color spread from her cheeks all the way down her neck as I reminded her of that little episode. "If anything you should be thanking me right now for covering up your stammering excuses for whatever the hell is going on—"

"And what exactly is going the hell on, James?" she interrupted. "What bloody fuck are you so adept at covering up for me?"

Looking at her tiny frame, shuddering with rage and the satisfaction of having sworn at me, my fury evaporated as quickly as it had appeared. I suddenly let out a huge laugh. "Lily," I said, reaching out as though to stroke her cheek but then thinking better of it and letting my hand drop. "I haven't the slightest clue."

Gently, I reached over and pulled the books back from her arms, taking advantage of her disorientation over my sudden change in emotion. "You promised," I reminded her. She let them go without a fight. I walked towards the huge marble staircase.

"You have to have some kind of dual-personality disorder, Potter," she accused, falling in step besides me.

"Only if you have a quintuple-personality disorder, Evans," I answered evenly.

The post-fight-extreme-civility between me and Lily lasted three days. Then we were at each other's throats again.

"How can you just shrug your shoulders? Sirius wasn't joking, even if he pretends he was, you know he means it!" Lily screamed at me from across our Common Room. Apparently Sirius had made some rather tasteless comments about boiling Snivellus' smelly head in his cauldron over dinner. And apparently snorting hot chocolate out of my nose when she told me about the comment hadn't been the reaction she was looking for.

"Oh come on, Lily," I pleaded, ducking a rather heavy looking potions book flying at my head. "Do you really think Pads would do that? I mean, come on!"

Lily stared at me with blatant horror in her eyes. "Yes! Yes, I do think he would do that." With a sharp flick she resumed enchanting various objects in the room to attack me. "And I'm not so sure you wouldn't either!"

"No!" I dodged several pillows. "Really, I wouldn't!" I ducked a particularly pointy shoe, where had that come from? "I'm not saying he wouldn't benefit from a nice hot bath—in a cauldron or not." I flattened myself to the ground, thanking god for Quiddich reflexes. "It would do a number on all that grease." I was really panting now. "But the logistics alone would never work out—his head is far too swollen fit in a cauldron!"

I was gonna pay for that one. With a scream of fury, Lily sent the whole couch at me and I was forced to finally use magic myself, transfiguring it into a cloud of feathers.

I feigned disappointment once all the feathers had settled onto the ground. "Now look what you've made me do? We don't have a couch anymore." I gestured at the mounds of feathers covering the floor around me. "This is why we can't have nice things."

I was mentally preparing to put up a magical shield for whatever onslaught was coming next, but all of Lily's anger vanished in a fit of giggles. "Look at yourself," she said.

Hesitating in case this was a trick, I finally glanced down at my legs only they weren't there. Instead there were two pillars of white fluffy stuff. Clinging to every inch of my body were thousands of brilliantly white down feathers. Even when I moved they stayed, static cling holding them firmly in place.

"I don't suppose these will be easy to transfigure back into a couch now," I mused.

Lily chuckled and flicked her wand towards me. Flinching in fear of further assaults regardless of her seeming mood swing for the better, I was relieved when all I felt was an odd sensation of pressure, rather like the undertow of a wave at the beach, and all the feathers were magically squeegeed off my body.

"You're better at transfiguration than me," Lily prompted, gesturing to the piles of feathers surrounding me.

I met her eyes, treasuring this moment of peace between us. Without looking away, I slowly moved my wand and reformed the couch, enchanting it back to its original position. Even after the room was returned to normal I kept Lily's gaze, unwilling to break it until she finally turned and walked into her room without a word.

And so we continued in this strange war-and-peace relationship, breaking into fights over the tiniest things the way we had in previous years but always ending them on good terms. The fact was that our relationship had changed drastically after we'd almost kissed, but I didn't fully understand how.

In some ways we had returned to our past, Lily constantly picking fights and myself arrogantly antagonizing her. It was like we had been cautiously tip-toeing around one another all semester and only now were again allowing our true personalities to shine through.

But at the same time it was an entirely different way of arguing because we always resolved the debate in one way or the other and were much more careful not to make public displays as we had in the past. Rather than throwing a bowl of mashed potatoes in my face over dinner as she had in our third year, Lily would now wait until we were alone to pounce.

But there was another dimension to our relationship now that was entirely new to me: friendship. There had been anger and lust in our past as well as occasional camaraderie and civility, but I could never have been able to call Lily a friend with honesty. But in the long hours alone in the Heads' Common Room each night small talk became conversation and conversation became genuine friendship.

On one such casual evening a day before the Christmas holiday I complained to Lily about needing to pack.

"I never got that whole wrist twist just right that makes everything pack itself neatly into my trunk." I stretched my legs out, slouching down into my favorite squishy armchair. "Whenever I try my things just sort of squirm around like they'd been rictumsempra-ed."

Lily chuckled from her seat at one of the elegant desks in the room. Her hair was pulled fiercely back into a tight braid that I had heard O'Leary complaining about earlier in the day. I rather liked the look though. While it certainly did nothing for her beautiful auburn curls, the braid showed off the simple beauty of her face, from the pouty lips to the delicate brows. "I can do it for you, if you want," she offered, her voice breaking through my contemplation of her flawless profile.

"Mmmm," I mused. "I may just take you up on that, Miss Evans," I said. "Have you packed any of your things yet?"

With concern, I saw that her shoulders tensed at my question though she kept her face entirely neutral. "I'm actually planning on staying here this Christmas," she said, too nonchalantly to be natural.

"But why?" I asked, walking over to the desk and crouching down to be on her eye level.

"Well I just have a lot of work to do," she lied, shuffling papers around on the desk and refusing to meet my gaze. "And I just thought it would be easier to stay here."

I arched one eyebrow. "Lily," I said in a warning tone.

She blushed, staring at her hands. After a moment she looked up and I was shocked at the amount of pain I saw there. "Petunia doesn't want me for Christmas this year," she managed in a strained whisper. "Grandma's Alzheimer has been getting worse, and Petunia says she doesn't even remember me anymore, that she doesn't think she's seen me since I was twelve and that it would be best if I didn't see her anymore and confuse her."

I reached over and took her hand without hesitating, ignoring the surprise in her eyes as I wrapped my fingers tightly around hers. "So you're just going to let her do that?" I asked. "You're going to let your sister steal the last family member you have away from you?"

"It's Tuney's house now," she reasoned.

"Are you a Gryffindor or not?" I demanded, perhaps a bit too loudly because she jumped, then glared at me, attempting—unsuccessfully—to pull her hand from mine.

"You know, it's none of your business, James!" she declared angrily. "I don't even know why I'm telling you this." She tried to stand but I pulled her firmly back into the seat.

"You're right," I amended immediately. Boldly putting my other hand to her cheek to wipe away the angry tears that were appearing in spite of her best attempt to remain composed. "You're right, it's your decision and I shouldn't have yelled at you. But really, you love your grandmother, why would you ever give up that relationship or let it be taken from you? I don't understand." I tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear, but quickly pulled the hand away.

Lily shrugged after a moment, studying our entwined hands. "Maybe she's right," she mused, almost as though she was in an empty room talking to herself. "I can barely see Grandma as it is, always away at school. Maybe Petunia's right, and its best to save her the heartache of trying to remember me." I waited, in case she wanted to continue. "I made a choice to put my magical life before my muggle one," she admitted, looking up with guilt in her eyes. "Maybe I don't deserve that relationship anymore."

I shook my head, leaning closer to her. "I can't image that could be true," I answered. "But no one should spend Christmas alone. Come home with me," I asked before I realized the thought had even occurred to me.

I expected a flat refusal and prepared myself for the blunt misery of rejection, but Lily just stared at me, giving me time to gather my thoughts and my courage.

"Come home with me, Lily," I tried to keep the note of desperation out of my voice. "You'd be so lonely here all alone and my mum would love to have more people than just the two of us and Sirius on Christmas morning."

Lily blushed. "I can't possibly do that," she mumbled, looking down.

"Why not?" I asked. "We already live together here, it would hardly be inappropriate, and," I paused, waiting for her to look up again before continuing. "And I'd really enjoy having you," I added.

Slowly, like a flower opening its petals to the morning sun, a smile spread across Lily's features. "Yeah?" she said. "It really wouldn't be any trouble?"

"It would be more than a pleasure," I said, leaning ever so slightly closer, inhaling her refreshing honey-suckle scent.

For the second time in two weeks I was intoxicatingly close to fulfilling my life's dream and kissing Lily Evans, and for the second time in two weeks I was interrupted at exactly the wrong moment.

A loud knock at the portrait hole made us both jump apart like startled deer. "Lily!" My heart plummeted to somewhere in my arse when I heard O'Leary's voice at the door.

"Coming!" Lily squeaked, running to the portrait hole. I sank into my favorite armchair, suddenly absorbed in studying the pattern on the carpet.

I heard O'Leary come through the portrait hole and start at the sight of me. "Are you guys ever apart?" he whined.

"Well he does live here," Lily hedged. I pulled a book off the nearest side table and opened it to a random page but I was too busy eves dropping to take in a single word.

After a pregnant pause O'Leary said, "So have you finished packing yet then?"

Another pause. "Actually, I haven't started yet." Had she really not told him she wasn't going home? Or had he just forgotten?

"How come? We leave tomorrow." I could tell O'Leary was uncomfortable chatting with me in the room but Lily hadn't invited him into her bedroom and the door was closed.

"Well—I, uh, just decided I'd be going," Lily said cautiously, clearly not wanting to admit that she was going home with me. Suddenly, I'd had enough. I was suddenly disgusted with her constant toying with me. In all but name, I was Lily's boyfriend. I was the guy who she came to with her worries, the one who noticed enough to ask her about them. I was the guy who knew her favorite color, band, and flavor of tea. I was disgusted by the way she took advantage of how hopelessly in love with her I was.

But more than anything else, I was disgusted with myself for letting her.

With a sharp clap I snapped the book I was holding closed and tossed it roughly back onto the table and walked to my room, closing the door firmly behind me and throwing myself on my bed. I willed myself to stay in place but I couldn't help myself. It took all of ten seconds for me to creep back to the door and press my ear against the key hole, hanging on every word that passed between them and hating myself for it.

"What's going on, Lily?" O'Leary demanded. "How can you possibly say there's nothing going on between you two when you're going home with him?" he demanded. "That's bullshit!" In my new mind of clarity, I realized that O'Leary was right, as much as I hated even thinking it.

I could her the pleading in Lily's voice and it made me want to crush the doorknob I was suddenly clutching for dear life. "No, it's not like that!" she pleaded. "We're just friends!"

_Bullshit!_ I wanted to scream through the door but I had forgotten how to move my tongue.

"You can't go," O'Leary said.

Lily snorted. "You can't tell me what I can do!" she yelled. "What's wrong, don't you trust me?" I thought of the several times we'd almost kissed, one of which was only a few minutes ago. Did she really think she had any right to ask that?

"Honestly Lily, no, I don't trust you." O'Leary said. I hated that I could half find myself sympathizing with him. "And I sure as hell don't trust James!" Sympathy gone. "You two have been acting like a hell of a lot more than friends the past few weeks."

"We're Heads together!" Lily resisted. "It's business. That's it. Do you have any idea how difficult my job would be if we hadn't learned to get along and be friends? Have you conveniently missed the fact that we still fight _all the time_? He's still the same arrogant, toerag, Potter he's always been, and he still drives me crazy, but I've got to work with him." To say it felt like someone had hit me in the gut with a dozen bludgers would be an understatement.

"Whatever Lily," O'Leary said after a long silence. I heard the portrait hole open and close.

"Ben!" Lily called. Another long silence. Then a knock. On my door.

I swung the door open, and for the first time, seeing Lily did not instantly lift my spirits.

"I'm guessing you heard all that," she said to her shoes.

I didn't answer.

"Look James—"

"Save it Lily," I said, surprising myself at how cold my voice sounded. "I think you've made it crystal clear how you feel about me. I'll save you the trouble of trying to decide between your boyfriend and being a good Head Girl. You're uninvited to my home for the holiday. I promise it won't affect our Head duties together."

"James," Lily pleaded and I finally met her eyes. I could acknowledge that they were as stunningly beautiful as ever, but I saw them as I would a very pretty pair of eyes in a magazine photo, not the eyes I'd been so bewitched by over the past seven years.

"Good night, Lily," I said, closing the door in her face and dragging myself into bed.

I'd have to say Step 8 was an absolute disaster.


	10. Chapter 10

Author's Note: I'm really appreciating all the people who are willing to keep reading my stuff even though updates are so few and far between. I love writing but it just has to take a back burner to all the other things in my life (read: school, career, health, family, friends, pets, whiskey, WHOOPS, scratch that last one ;-D). Really though, I'm still very attached to this story and have every intention of seeing it through to the end.

Ch. 10

Step 9: Frantically ask her if she's sick whenever she sneezes. [December 22nd-January 4th]

As I lay sprawled on my back on my four-poster I couldn't help but dwell on the irony of the step I was supposed to be beginning today. After spending the entire night wide awake studying the stitching in the canopy over my bed it seemed much more likely I'd be the sick one.

Lily would probably be well-rested and bushy-tailed. A few minutes after I'd closed my door I'd heard the portrait hole open and close, then several hours passed before I heard it again. As furious as I was with her, it was no less excruciating to think about what she had probably been doing with those hours.

"Probably had a lovely little make-up snog-fest with O'Leary," I grumbled to myself, rolling onto my side and hugging my pillow like it was the only thing anchoring me to the bed. I could see it in my mind. Teary eyed and repentant as she'd been at my door, but in front of O'Leary instead of me, begging him to forgive her, promising him that she wasn't going to go home with me any more, probably lying and saying that it had been her idea.

I gazed dejectedly out the window as the first rays of winter sunlight began to filter through the trees of the Forbidden Forrest. It was probably five in the morning by now. I wondered if I had managed to doze off at all through the night but I was reasonably sure I hadn't.

Lily. How well did I really know her? For years I'd observed her, obsessed over her, memorized her traits, interests and hobbies, speculated about her home life and interrogated Toinette for information. I'd been so sure I knew her better than she knew herself, but really, what do all those things mean? All of Hogwarts knows that I love the Marauders, Lily, Quiddich, pranks and Transfiguration, but I certainly wouldn't say that they know the real James Potter.

How could I have been so stupid? Again? Through the fall semester as I gradually broke down Lily's defenses and she started to share with me I should have realized how much there was I didn't know about her yet.

_Like what a manipulative little bitch she could be_, I thought venomously, instantly hating myself afterwards. It wasn't Lily's fault I had placed her up on a pedestal back in first year and had refused to listen to anything negative about her ever since.

_Everyone has their flaws_, I mused. But can you forgive every flaw? Looking back on the past few months I still felt that raging fury of the previous night, cooled down to a glowing ember, but still present deep in my chest, waiting for something to incite it again.

How many times had we almost kissed? Instigated by her as well as by me? How many times had she flirted with me, jokingly but always on that borderline girls can walk so well—giving you a glimmer of hope without promising anything? I could see her in my head, batting her eyelashes tantalizingly. I could hear her voice, offering to go to the library with me, complimenting my pranks, sharing her parents' deaths with me, explaining her relationship with Petunia.

Whatever obvious character flaws (and lack of Quiddich prowess) the guy had, O'Leary was right, Lily and I were far more than friends. O'Leary was her public boyfriend in name at least, but emotionally—and almost physically, I was her real boyfriend.

Looked at as a body of events, it was pathetic. If Moony, Wormtail or Padfoot had ever acted this desperately I'd have beaten them over the head with a particularly heavy text book and talked some sense into them. But hadn't they tried to do just that? For years? I was just more determined—read: pig-headed—than them.

The fact I had to accept was that the Lily I loved wasn't who she really was. No one could ever live up to the flawless woman I had made her out to be in my mind. But if my whole world revolved around loving Lily, and she wasn't who I though she was, where did that leave me?

"Purpose-less and lonely," I told myself glumly, curling into a smaller ball around my pillow.

Suddenly, an even more harrowing thought occurred to me. If Lily wasn't who I thought she was, did I even really love her? _No_, I realized. No, the person I loved didn't exist.

It took several long moments of heart wrenching pain for that truth to really settle in. The object of all my dreaming and desiring for the past several years was nonexistent. In many ways it felt as if my entire existence was futile. My efforts and planning at the very least were entirely in vain.

I didn't know the real Lily, and I didn't love her. More, I didn't think I _could_ love this other Lily. Starting from scratch now, knowing the way she'd used me and my idolatry of her over the past few months, I wasn't sure I wanted to love her.

I was faced with one ugly truth: it was time to finally get over Lily Evans.

Unable to dwell any longer on my misery, I dragged myself out of bed and into the bathroom, allowing the hot water to massage away some of the tension from my back and shoulders. After about half of the castle's stores of hot water scalded their way down my body, I finally turned the faucet off and went back to my room, noting the fully risen sun hovering over the horizon. I avoided the mirror in the corner of my room; I didn't want to see how haggard my face looked after my night long vigil.

I pulled on muggle clothing for the train ride back to King's Cross: my most worn in and comfortable brown corduroys and a soft dark green shirt that my mum really liked. Carelessly, I tossed my few remaining scattered possessions into my trunk, ruefully remembering Lily's offer to help me pack more neatly. It was still far too early to go down to breakfast but I figured I could walk around the grounds a bit before the train ride at least. I didn't feel much like eating anyways.

I was halfway to the portrait hole when I saw Lily occupying the armchair I'd sunk into the night before. She looked as tired as I felt and I wondered for a moment if her reunion with O'Leary hadn't gone how I'd imagined before I reminded myself that I wasn't supposed to care.

We stared at each other for a long moment. I was torn into two warring aspects of myself. The part of me that had spent so long dreaming of finally calling Lily my own demanded that I make up with her; it wasn't too late for her to come home with me after all. But the logical side that had always hovered under the surface, skeptical of my ever succeeding at winning her had gained a lot of ground in the past ten hours of wakefulness.

Wouldn't Lily's boyfriend be the one who asked her if she felt alright? Shouldn't he be the one to stroke her face and ask why she clearly hadn't slept? Wasn't it his to take her into his arms and comfort her?

That was not me and never would be. She had made that abundantly clear.

I started to turn away when she spoke. "James," she said quietly but firmly as she stood. "I can't even tell you how sorry I am. I didn't mean—"

"Please don't, Lily," I answered, refusing to turn and meet her gaze so as to keep my resolve. "Stop trying to be nice. You've been telling me you wanted nothing to do with me for years and I just didn't want to listen. I'm finally listening. I'm going to leave you alone—as much as our job will allow me. You don't have to pretend anymore."

I was at the portrait hole when she spoke again, softly. "But I wasn't pretending."

That's all it took for the ember to burst into flames again.

"YOU WEREN'T PRETENDING?!" I roared, spinning to face her and clenching my fists at my sides. Lily dropped back into her seat in shock. Certainly we'd fought before, in fact, that's practically all we ever did, but I had never initiated it and I'd certainly never yelled at her like this.

"_He's still the same arrogant, toerag, Potter he's always been, and he still drives me crazy_," I mimicked her, shocked at the nasty, cruel tone my voice had taken on. I'd heard the words over and over again in my head all night that I easily recalled them verbatim. "Isn't that what you said, Lily?"

She just stared at me in shocked silence but it only enraged me further.

"I've tried Lily!" I vaguely registered my fingernails biting into my palms as I clenched my fists. "Merlin knows I've tried for you but I just don't know what you want from me anymore! A friend? A lover? An enemy? Eternal worship? I don't think YOU know! And I'm sick of it! I'm so bloody sick of it I want to walk out of here and never have to come back! I'm sick of never being good enough for bloody-fucking-perfect Evans!" At this point my voice was making the picture frames vibrate against the walls but I didn't care.

"I'M NOT YOUR FUCKING TOY, LILY!" She quivered in her chair but didn't offer any protestations. "DO YOU GET THAT? FOR A SMART GIRL I REALLY DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW YOU THINK YOU CAN USE AND MANIPULATE PEOPLE LIKE THIS! YOU WANT ME ONE DAY, O'LEARY THE NEXT, AND NOBODY THE DAY AFTER THAT! HOW IN YOUR TWISTED MIND IS THAT OKAY?"

She started crying, silent tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Merlin!" I kicked the side table closest to me, sending the lamp crashing to the floor as I ran my hand through my hair. The clashing sound calmed me down enough to regain my composure. "It's done," I said in a lower voice, finally looking her in the eyes. "This fucked up fake relationship we have going on where you use me and I follow you around like a helpless puppy dog? It's over. How many times have you insulted me for my pride? Well I'm finally showing some. Find yourself a new pet because I'm not doing it anymore."

The portrait hole was open when she sneezed. I froze in place, staring at the corridor beyond but thinking about the girl behind me and what I had sworn to do for her over the past several months even if she didn't know it.

"Are you sick?" I asked her tonelessly.

"No," she squeaked out between sniffles.

I climbed into the corridor and walked away.

o.0.o

No amount of joking or pleading from my Marauders would pull me out of my gloom on the train ride back to London. I explained to them and Toinette as briefly as possible what had transpired between Lily and me in the past 24 hours and my decision to finally move on and then turned to gaze out the window at the repetitive countryside.

However I couldn't help but meet Toinette's eyes for a moment first, registering the sadness and regret so evident there and wondering what Lily had had time to tell her before we left. Did she scream and curse about how _I'd_ led _her_ on for years? Did she put on a cheerful face and pretend it never happened. Did she feel guilty? Did she regret how she'd treated me? Did she say she was glad I'd finally stop following her around? Did she cry? I reminded myself I wasn't supposed to care.

Eventually they left me alone to mope, and I focused on continuing to breathe until the train pulled into King's Cross.

On the platform each of my friends hugged me and patted me on the back, wishing me a happy Christmas, sentiments I returned half heartedly.

I swerved my way through the crowds of students, holding Charlie high above my head and dragging my trunk, making my way to the parking lot and finding my mother's beat up Mercedes. I say beat up because any muggle would think it was a clunker that can barely run from its outward appearance, but inside it was spacious, luxurious and drove itself.

My mom was leaning against the car, smiling, the first thing to raise my spirits since O'Leary had entered the Heads' Common Room the night before. Even middle aged, she was still the beautiful woman she'd been in her 20s, age lending her grace. Long dark brown hair just a shade lighter than mine and slightly olive skin, she would make an impression even if she weren't the most fashionable witch I'd ever seen. She wasn't over the top, jumping on every fashion trend, but her classic style and make up always made her seem like such a real person to me. If you can't tell yet, I'm a mama's boy.

"Hi baby," she crooned, pulling me into a hug. "Why the long face?" I buried my face into her neck and inhaled that warm smell only mothers seem to have.

"I'd rather not, Mum," I said, not because I'm not close with my mom—she knew almost as much about my obsession with Lily as the Marauders—but just because I was tired of explaining what had happened. And seeing her, I was a little embarrassed about losing my temper. I still meant every word I'd said to Lily, but my mother had raised me to respect women, and as I replayed the cursing and breaking of lamps in my mind I had to admit I hadn't been very respectful.

"Okay," she said, holding me at arms length and studying my face. I could see she was worried but she smiled. "Let's go home."

I gave her a flicker of a smile in return and climbed into the car.

o.0.o.

"Alright, out with it."

I jumped at my mom's voice, the sudden movement eliciting a discontented yowl from Suze, our massive white, long haired cat (or should I say breathing throw pillow?) who was curled up on my lap.

She chuckled as I attempted to sooth the grumpy animal but amazingly, Suze had already gone back to sleep. She was truly a stunning example of feline pedigree, but she was such a stubborn bratty thing half of the time that it was easy to forget. Either way, she made great snuggling company.

"Out with what?" I grumbled, returning my gaze to the merrily crackling fireplace. Mum sighed and walked over to sit next to me on the couch but I determinedly kept from meeting her gaze.

We were seated in the den, my favorite room in the house because of the huge teak desk in the corner that had been my father's. He never did work from home, but I remembered him chuckling as I'd sit behind it as a child, dwarfed by the size of the thing even with several pillows to prop me up, pretending to sign important documents and writs of arrest. It was a handsome room, reasonably proportioned but made smaller by the floor to ceiling bookshelves that covered every wall.

Looking closer, I realized that Mum hadn't set foot in here since I'd left for school. The pillows on the other arm chairs were exactly as I remembered them last and my beat up copy of _Quiddich throughout the Ages_ was still perched on the end table with a coaster marking my spot. Not that I was surprised. It had been six months, but in this room it still felt like Dad was going to walk through the door at any moment. We all deal with our grief in our own ways.

Mum was frowning slightly, probably dwelling on the same memories as me, but with a less comforting result. "It's Lily," I said to distract her. Then sighed, thinking how many times I'd said that to her. "It's always Lily."

I spent the next two hours reliving the past four months, describing the list, Lily and my tentative friendship, all the conflicting emotions I'd seen in her eyes, the last night when I'd been so hopeful and then so lost. Mum was a sympathetic listener; I think that's why I'd never had a problem being close to her like so many teenaged boys. She didn't interrupt, just nodded sympathetically and patted my knee occasionally, allowing me to let it all out.

Once I'd finished she sighed, pulling my head down to her shoulder and stroking my brow comfortingly. "Oh, James," she murmured into my hair. "Just give it time. I wish I could tell you an easy answer here. Obviously you and Lily were really emotional at the time, but you can't hold one little overheard conversation against her forever, same as she can't hold you yelling at her against you.

"But you're wrong to think that you don't know her," she added. "Yes, all the little things about Lily don't really make up her personality, but from what you've told me, you really did get to know her so far this year. And you didn't dislike _that_ Lily until just last night."

In response to my silence she pulled my shoulders up so she could look me in the eye. "You're right that you don't know everything about her yet," she smiled. "But that's the fun part of loving someone. You're never going to know everything."

"You don't think you know everything about Da?" I asked, regretting the pain I knew it would cause her but suddenly insatiably curious. I'd never seen a couple so in love, so perfectly matched for one another as my parents. They were the reason I'd grown into such a romantic despite my flaws.

A shadow passed over her face but she smiled slightly. "No," she said, "No, your father was always surprising me. And although he knew me better than anyone I know he didn't know everything about me."

I frowned, confused by her answer. "Why didn't you tell him?" I asked, fighting to keep the accusation out of my tone.

She furrowed her brow, clearly trying to think of a way to explain. "Some things can't be told, per se," she answered slowly. "They have to be discovered, because there're no words that fully encompass the complexity of a person." She smiled at my confused expression. "Try it," she ordered. "Try to explain who you are."

"Well that's easy," I said. "I'm James Potter.

Mum laughed. "And who is James Potter?"

"I'm Elena and Harold's son. I'm a Gryffindor. I'm a Quiddich Chaser, a Marauder, a wizard, good at transfiguration but abysmal at potions. I'm loyal to my friends and family. I hold grudges. I play the piano. I love my cat even though she's a lazy useless thing," I add, ruffling Suze's fur.

"But I could have told you that. Or Sirius or Toinette, or even Lily, I'd bet," Mum prodded gently. "Think deeper. You're so much more than all that."

I stared into the fire. She was right of course. I genuinely cared about people—I thought about Sam, Johnny and Meredith, my first year friends—but wasn't above using them—I thought about Chris, the little Slytherin I'd locked in the broom cupboard. As much as I protested it coming from Lily, I did have a deep rooted sense of pride that was at once a flaw and a virtue. But I knew that Mum meant something even deeper. Because all these things I thought of were reflections of how other people saw me, or how I imagined they saw me, or how I wanted them to see me.

If I were the only person in the world, who would I be? I thought about the rush of wind in my hair as I fly on a broom or the contented feeling in my gut when I wake up from a dream that I can't remember but I know was pleasant. I thought of the clear-headedness I feel when seated at a piano or the curiosity and desire I felt as I researched how to become an animagus and so much more.

Then I brought back all the people I care about. I felt the immediate relief I felt when I saw my mother at the train station, the unshakable conviction that I would do anything to protect my friends and the constricting feeling I get in my chest whenever Lily's near. I thought back to all the decisions I'd made in my life and realized how complicated they were, not a single one of them motivated by just one aspect of my personality, but several, weighted differently in different situations, but all equally present. No, I could never fully explain that to someone in words. And as we change and grow each day no one could ever possibly fully understand my motivations the way I can with all my memories and prejudices stored up inside.

"Then how do you know you love someone?" I finally asked.

Mum kissed my forehead. "You just do, sweet. I loved you from the moment I felt you kicking in my belly, and I had no idea then what a little rascal you'd turn into." She said tousling my hair.

"Mum!" I whined, flattening my hair and conveniently forgetting that usually my instinct was to do the opposite.

She chuckled and kissed my forehead. "I mean it though, James. Knowing everything there is to know about someone doesn't mean you love them—it means you're stalking them perhaps—" She put a finger over my mouth to silence my disgruntled noise of protestation. "But there's a lot more to love than knowledge."

I stroked Suze's head absentmindedly. "That's all well and good, so maybe I do still care about Lily," I couldn't bring myself to say love. "But that doesn't make her any closer to loving me." Somehow, I felt even worse than I had in the morning, a feat I would have thought impossible.

Mum's forehead creased. "That's how I know you're growing up," she said sadly. "Your problems are getting big enough that I can't fix them for you."

She paused, for a long while, staring into the fire. "James, I'll be honest, I don't know if Lily loves you or not. I've never actually met her, aside from seeing her at the train station, and I certainly haven't seen you two interact." She met my eyes. "But I know my son. He's an incredible, sweet, talented, handsome young man that any sane young lady would be happy to date. So if you think Lily is worth having, she's either insane or she cares about you too, no matter how uncertain she is about that feeling."

"Mum, by that logic we'd have the majority of Britain barging through our door right now," I commented.

She gave me an exaggerated wink. "I barred the garden gate," she whispered conspiratorially, standing up. "It's bed time for me. Don't stay up too late worrying, I'll have Glads bring you some hot chocolate," she said.

"Most likely spiked with a sleeping potion," I answered.

She laughed but didn't disagree. I picked Suze up from under her arms, ignoring her half-asleep protestations, and held her in front of my face. "What do you think Suze?" I asked. "Should I let her drug me?" Suze just glared at me, willing me to put her down so she could nuzzle into my chest and go back to sleep. "You're right," I answered. "Sleep is good." I laid her back in my lap and looked again at the fire.

Recalling my fury in the morning I realized only part of it had really been directed at Lily. Most of my anger was at myself because still, no matter how badly she broke me, I was still just as hopelessly infatuated with her. I found myself looking forward to that nice dose of sleeping potion.

Right on cue, I heard a middle pitched voice from the door. "Master James, Mistress asked me to bring you this." Glads, our house elf placed a silver tray with a sturdily built mug of hot chocolate on it on the table next to me. He was dressed as always, in a homemade toga of sorts made out of deep burgundy towels with bronze embroidery. Shorter than my hip and with huge orb-like eyes, he would be a frightening sight for anyone who wasn't used to house elves, but for me he symbolized comfort and home.

"Thank you, Glads," I said, smiling warmly at him. "It's good to see you."

"It's always a pleasure, Master James," he said, but I could hear the genuine warmth in his voice.

"Tell me honestly," I said, thinking about Mum's tired expression as she had surveyed the den. "How has she been holding up?" I knew he would know instantly who I was talk about.

Glads looked at his feet for a moment then met my eyes. "Mistress doesn't sleep well, Master Potter," he confided quietly. "Glads is hearing her at night, Sir. Tosses and turn all night, she does."

I frowned. "Does she take anything?" I asked, thinking of the spiked drink waiting for me and grabbing it to take a sip.

Glads shook his head. "I is trying to sneak some into her drinks when she isn't watching, Sir, but she never drinks them after," he whispered, clearly horrified at his stealth. "Mistress is too good to be getting angry at Glads, but she never touches a drink once there's sleeping draught in it."

I nodded, understanding. After years as an Auror, Mum is pretty good at knowing when something's been tampered with. It's easy enough for her to tell or make me to take something to sleep, but making the choice to take it yourself is like admitting defeat.

"Thank you for trying, Glads. I'll talk to her about it," I said.

Glads gave a little bow. "Very good, Sir."

"I'll be going up to bed as soon as I've drunk this," I said, raising the mug in my hand. "I'll bank the fire myself so you can go to bed now."

Glads bowed again and left.

As I stroked Suze's head and sipped my way through my steaming mug of hot chocolate, I contemplated my own self-centered nature. I tried to imagine Lily loving me back, building a life together, having a child, being sure of many future years of happiness together and then having it torn from me. Considering I had thought I was at the most acute level of misery this morning, and the excruciating pangs of loneliness and loss that I feel whenever I think about my father, I realized that I was not capable of coming even close to conceiving my mother's grief.

"Well that's a comforting thought to put one to sleep, isn't it Suze?" I asked the unconscious fur-ball.

Draining the last of my cup, I gently scooped the cat up into my arms like a baby and banked the fire. Already feeling the sleeping draught pulling at the corners of my mind, I trudged up the stairs, placed Suze on the foot of my bed, stripped down to my underwear and climbed into bed, asleep as soon as my head his the pillow.

o.0.o

When I woke up I was suffocating.

I flung my arms around wildly, smacking at an invisible attacker and lurching into a sitting position, not realizing I could breathe again until I'd swallowed several huge gasps. "What the bloody hell was that?" I asked, panting.

With a yowl as an answer Suze leapt up from the floor where I'd unceremoniously dumped her and dug her claws painfully into my thighs before leaping to the floor again and forcing her way out the door. I had forgotten Suze's favorite form of animal alarm clock. She wanted to go outside and here I was resolutely continuing to sleep without a care in the world.

"Of course," I muttered, slumping back onto my pillow. "Some people have nice, sane pets that stick a cold nose in their ear or nuzzle them when they want them to wake up. I have the homicidal pet who tries to smother me in my sleep." I looked at my watch and groaned. It was barely past eight in the morning.

Knowing I would never get back to sleep with my heart racing like it was—and that Suze would probably stage another attempt on my life if I tried—I forced myself out of bed.

I took my time showering and drying off though, knowing Suze was waiting impatiently for me to come downstairs. I continued to dawdle as I pulled clothes out of my trunk, I'd finish unpacking later in the day, but I took the time to put my three favorite pictures on my nightstand, the one of Toinette and Lily laughing, one of my father and mother taken a few years before their marriage, and one of me and the Marauders, laughing together in my own backyard.

Finally I tramped my way down the stairs and into the kitchen. Glads must have heard the water running because there was a heaping plate of eggs, bacon and toast waiting for me with a mug of peppermint tea and one of hot chocolate. I cringed at the peppermint and poured it down the sink. I only drank it at school because of Lily, but one winter I had insisted on having it with every meal in an attempt to force myself to like it—unsuccessfully I might add—and Glads had continued to provide me with it ever since. As there was no Lily within a hundred miles, I felt it was safe to forgo the tea.

As expected, Suze was waiting for me and immediately began to weave her way through my legs, making it impossible to walk. "Gerroff, you mangy beast!" I said as I scooped her up by the tummy with one foot and tossed her gently a few feet away, just enough that I could get to the door before she got her bearings and came after me again.

"Here you go, you ungrateful brat," I said, holding the door open for her. Suze scurried out into the garden, doubtlessly to hunt gnomes, though I doubt she'd have much luck on a day as cold as this one. Any garden gnome with a modicum of sense—which is admittedly relatively few of them—would be nestled deep in their cozy tunnels on a day like this. I'd be letting Suze back into the house in under an hour I bet myself.

As I tucked into my breakfast I wondered why Suze had come to wake me rather than Mum; she was the early riser of the family. Almost as soon as I thought it I noticed the small envelope leaning against my hot chocolate.

With a plunging feeling in my gut I opened the note, already knowing what it would say.

_James,_

_I have to pop into the office for a bit, just to help out with a few things, nothing serious, but I don't know how long I'll be out. I know you're probably frustrated with me, but I _promise_ I have all day tomorrow and the day after to be home with you._

_I left some money on the mantle in the den next to the jar of floo powder. It's almost empty but there's still a bit left. Why don't you pop down to Diagon Alley and see if one of the boys or Toinette wants to join you for lunch or just to wander around for a bit?_

_I'll see you tonight._

_Love,_

_Mum_

I couldn't say I was surprised. Even before Dad died they'd both been work-aholics, I guess it came with the job description, but after she'd thrown herself into her work with a vengeance. At first I thought it was good for her, keeping her distracted from her greif—nobody wants to wander around their empty house being miserable—but the lines on her face that I'd attributed to our recent loss could just as easily come from her burdensome job.

I decided I may as well go to Diagon Alley; I didn't want to be in the empty house alone. I knew I'd have no luck getting anyone to join me so early so I decided to take stock of what else we were low on—knowing Mum, everything. She wasn't irresponsible, far from it in fact, but Mum never really got the knack of predicting when she'd need to buy replacements for things. Powerful dark wizards were one thing, but a quickly emptying bottle of salamander bile was another entirely.

Finishing my breakfast, I popped into the den for a quill and some parchment. Noting that we were almost out of both parchment and ink, I wrote that on the top of the sheet, followed by floo powder, smiling ironically to myself. "What would become of her if I didn't mother her?" I asked the empty room. "I suppose Glads would keep her alive."

First I checked under the sink for cleaning supplies, noting our complete lack of Mrs. Skower's All Purpose Cleaner. The shampoo bottle had felt a bit light during my shower too so I jotted that down for good measure.

The potions cabinet seemed well stocked enough but I wrote down a few things that looked like they'd run out before I was home again at the end of the year. I made my way back to the kitchen and let Suze back in—she'd lasted less than half an hour—and was pleased to see Glads enter, doubtlessly to take my breakfast plates away.

"Good morning, Master James," he said.

"Glads!" I enthused, thumping him on the back. "Just who I was hoping to see. Is there anything not on this list that we need?" I asked him.

He looked it over, furrowing his brow. "Not that Glads is knowing of, Sir," he answered.

"Thanks," I said, sitting at the table and thinking back to school. What did I need? Dress robes for one, for the ball Lily and I were supposed to plan. My own potion stores could use shoring up certainly, and I needed more handle polish for my Silver Arrow. I already had gifts for all my close friends—and Lily though I doubted I'd be giving it to her now—but I wanted to get something to supplement the midnight blue witches' hat I'd gotten for my mother, and I ought to get Glads something nice—maybe another pillow to add to his nest of pillows in the pantry.

We'd tried to give him a real bed but Glads insisted that he loved the pantry and genuinely seemed to sleep poorly when we made him move so eventually Da had said to just let him sleep where he wanted. Even so every few months or so we'd add something small to make his pantry more like a bedroom, a lamp one month, a large wooden box to house his pillows—not quite a bed but almost—the next.

Adding these items to the list, I left it on the table and went upstairs to unpack. Staring into the jumbled mess in my trunk that was all of my belongings, I sighed and got to work.

A few hours later all that remained in my trunk was a scattered collection of unmatched socks, broken quills and Chocolate Frog cards. Calling it a job well done, I brushed off my hands and stood, suddenly realizing how ravenous I was.

A pinch of floo dust—the last pinch I might add—and a few rapid spins later I was tumbling out of the central hearth in the Leaky Cauldron. Tom, the barkeep's son who had left Hogwarts several years before, chuckled at me as I scrambled to regain my balance before returning to clearing a table.

"Hiya Tom," I said coolly, pretending I hadn't almost ended up splayed out on the floor at his feet.

He nodded at me. "James."

I bounded up the steps to the private rooms and apartments two at a time, flew down the hallways and came to a grinding halt outside room 39. Catching my breath and stealing myself, I pulled a handful of picks from my pocket and went to work at the lock, silently cursing the remaining months until I turned 17. Regular muggle lock picks wouldn't have been able to open the door—at best they just wouldn't work, at worst they would set of an alarm and do something dramatic like turn white hot and melt all over my hands—but I'd specially enchanted these while at Hogwarts to evade such charms.

Another few seconds later, I heard the lock pop open. I waited, holding my breath but no noise came from the rooms within. Silently, I turned the knob and crept into the now familiar living room. I tiptoed across and with a bang, slammed the door to Sirius' bedroom open against the wall.

"ARGH!" With lots of flailing, my best friend sat up in bed, shirtless and panting, and to much of my horror, my cousin was next to him (thankfully _not_ shirtless).

With a strangled cry I pulled the door closed again. "What the hell guys!" I called through the door, pacing across the room. "Are you trying to burn my eyeballs out of their sockets?" I'm not a prude, but I'd always felt a big brother like protectiveness of Toinette and I typically tried to just not think about her physical relationship with my Sirius to keep from wringing his neck. I imagine it would be a rather poor show of loyalty to murder your best friend in cold blood.

Sirius opened the door and yawned in my face, clearly over his scare. "Take it easy Prongs, you were the one who came barging in uninvited" he said, patting my shoulder. "Besides, we were just sleeping. This time," he added, raising his eyebrows suggestively and ducking the punch I swung at him.

Toinette came to the doorway behind him, pink cheeked and (I was glad to see) fully clothed, but seemingly as nonchalant as her boyfriend by her tone. "Really James," she said. "I couldn't sleep so I came over late last night and we just fell asleep. Please don't tell Mum though," she added, a note of panic entering her voice.

I chuckled to myself, thinking of my mother's uptight sister-in-law who was upset enough about her daughter dating a disowned, flying-motorcycle riding flirt, forget if she knew that that daughter had stayed the night. "What are you willing to do to buy my silence?" I asked. "Just warning you, I'm a natural chatterbox so it's gonna be pretty steep." My tone was light but in my gut I felt a twinge of jealousy of the easy comfort Sirius and Toinette had together. I was happy for my friend and cousin but they always made me lonely.

Toinette grinned, knowing I wouldn't ever rat her out, even if I'd caught her in a much more compromising situation. Suddenly she whipped her wand out of nowhere and wiggled it under my nose. "How about I don't jinx you into oblivion?" she asked. I glared, stumped. Toinette was four months older than me and as such, could use magic outside of Hogwarts, a fact she'd been lording over me ever since the sun rose on her 17th birthday.

I decided to go the sweet route. "Now, now," I said. "Is that any way to treat someone who had every intention of treating you to lunch?" I asked.

Sirius clapped me on the back. "Excellent! Just let me get dressed," he said.

Within five minutes the three of us were seated in a dusty corner of the bar downstairs, ordering our favorite foods. The bag my mother had left me had more than enough to pay for lunch as well as all the supplies I needed to buy.

"I'm glad you're feeling better already, Prongs," Sirius said as we waited for our food.

I stared at my hands. "Yeah, well…" I managed by way of a response. "I don't suppose you've talked to Lily about it?" I asked Toinette, looking up.

She smiled at me ruefully. "James you know I've said ages ago that I'm not going to become a messenger between you two," she said.

"Aw, come on Toinette," I whined. "We're not playing anymore, this is serious."

"Very true," Sirius said, one of the few times I ever remember him taking my side against Toinette. "We all know you want James and Lily to get together eventually so you might as well help it along a bit. And I'm sure Lily must have asked you if James was really sincere at some point and I find it very hard to believe you wouldn't immediately jump to his defense."

Toinette smiled and I thought we had her convinced for a moment but then she shook her head. "You're just going to have to wait for Lily to tell you what she thinks herself," she said with a smirk that made me sure she was keeping something from me.

Lucky for Toinette, the food arrived at that point and she was saved from further inquiry by the disgustingly huge appetites of teenaged boys.

The rest of the afternoon passed pleasantly, joking around and shopping in Diagon Alley. I found everything on my list, plus some owl treats for Charlie, Mother Higgins' Ship Rat Flavored cat treats for Suze, a book on broomstick designs of the future for me. As the sun was just starting to set we finished our hot fudge sundaes in Florean Fortesque's Ice Cream Parlor and said our goodbyes. Both Toinette and Sirius would be at my house for Christmas supper so it wasn't like it would be long before we saw each other again.

Mum was home when I arrived, a pleasant surprise, and she was delighted when she saw my purchases from the day. "James!" she fake scolded me. "Who's the mother here?"

I kissed her on the cheek. "Me," I said, bringing my personal purchases upstairs with me.

o.0.o

Christmas Eve at the Potter house was always a quiet, peaceful sort of day. After a light breakfast, Mum and I sat by the fire in the sitting room playing wizard's chess until it was time for lunch, throughout which Mum teased me thoroughly for losing all but one of four games. Pretending to be cross, I grumbled as I fetched my Silver Arrow and new bottle of polish and settled down to thoroughly rub down the broom. Mum smiled dotingly and curled up on the couch with Suze and the latest edition of Witch Weekly.

An hour later, I stood, stretched my cramped legs and announced that I was going for a quick ride.

Glancing out the window at the gray sky Mum said, "Not too long. It'll be dark soon and those clouds look nasty."

"I'll be fine," I said over my shoulder as I ran to get my warmest cloak and gloves from my room.

"I'll have something hot waiting for you when you get back," Mum said reluctantly.

Flying through our gardens and the woods beyond was a thrilling pleasure after being cooped up inside all day. Mum was right, it was bitingly cold, and the Quiddich Captain in me watched the dark clouds apprehensively, but the feel of my powerful broom racing beneath me and the frigid fingers of air whipping through my hair made be feel more at peace than I had in days.

For the first half hour I simply flew around in wide, swirling circles, my shoes skimming the tips of the leafless trees. Muggles were few and far between around Godric's Hollow and we were in a secluded enough part of the neighborhood that we never worried about detection. Once I tired of just flying I practiced Quiddich moves that truthfully were already drilled into my body as well as my mind. Rolling, diving and swerving, I practiced until I felt freezing specs burning my cheeks and I realized it had started to snow. Looking to the west I saw that by now I had passed at least two hours. Though I hated to go in I sensed the weariness in my muscles and knew Mum would worry if I took much longer. Allowing myself one last huge loop out over the trees, I touched back down lightly in our gardens.

I shook the worst of the snow out of my hair, it was coming down fast now, and barged into the house, calling as I went, "Mum! I'm back!" There was no answer from the nearby dining room or kitchens so I surmised she must be in the front of the house. "It was gorgeous, but you were right," I said as I walked, stripping off layers of thick winter clothes, "it's absolutely freezing out there."

I froze as I entered the sitting room. There was my mum, holding a steaming mug of tea with the promised mug of hot chocolate for me on the table next to her. But across from her—clutching her own mug of tea and as sickeningly pale as I was sure I must've been at that point—was Lily Evans.

"Uh—hi," I managed as the hand that wasn't holding my broom raced to my hair.

"Hi," Lily squeaked, her blanched face suddenly blushing a brilliant red.

"James!" Mum scolded. "Is that all you can manage when your friend came all this way to see you?" she asked.

I blushed too. "I'm sorry," I stammered. "It's wonderful to see you, Lily," I said. "Can I get you anything?"

"I'm all set, thanks," she said, lifting her mug a few inches in indication. We stared at each other as a _very_ awkward silence descended over the room.

"Lily and I have been having such a lovely little chat while we waited for you," Mum said, standing up. "I'm going to go ask Glads to set a third seat for dinner tonight. You will stay for dinner, won't you Lily dear?" she asked.

"Oh, no, I couldn't!" Lily protested.

I felt my mother's sharp gaze on me but I couldn't tear my eyes away from the redhead in front of me. "No, you should stay, Lily," I said, a second too late. "It would be our pleasure to have you for dinner," I added quickly, knowing Mum would be glaring daggers at me all night if I was anything but the gracious host.

"Perfect," said Mum without waiting for Lily to answer. "I'll just pop over to the kitchen then while you two catch up."

"Are you sure you don't need help?" I asked, suddenly desperate not to be alone in the room with the girl in front of me.

"No, James," Mum said forcefully, a warning note in her tone. "I'm sure Glads and I can manage just fine."

Resigned, I slumped to the seat she had just vacated and busied myself with looking occupied with my mug of hot chocolate.

"Did you have a good journey?" I asked, for the sake of filling the silent room. My mind seemed to be several seconds behind reality, struggling to catch up.

A strangled noise came from Lily as she attempted to answer. I looked up, scared she was choking but she just looked like she couldn't remember how to make her tongue work. _Well, at least I know I'm not the only extremely uncomfortable one here, _I thought_. So much for us being friends._

Clearing her throat, Lily tried again, the words rushing out, all in one breath. "Look, James, I know you must think I'm incredibly rude to barge in on you like this, especially on Christmas Eve," she said quickly. "I don't mean to intrude but I had to talk to you and I didn't want to write because an owl felt too impersonal and I couldn't wait two weeks for you to come back to the castle. One day was hard enough, not to mention the amount of damage not talking for weeks after a fight like that would do."

_Damage to what?_ I couldn't help but wonder bitterly.

Lily paused, catching her breath, calculating what to say next. In spite of myself, I was drawn in the way I always am, watching her think. It reminded me of the way she looks when working on a particularly complicated essay or brewing one of the tougher potions Slughorn sets us when he's gone too long without a piece of crystallized pineapple.

Suddenly our eyes met and I saw a fierceness there that I'd never seen before. "What I'm trying to say is that I'm sorry," she said. "You were right, you _are_ right. About everything, and I'm so sorry I wasn't willing to see that. I've been using you and hurting you and just generally being an awful person all year. You've done everything that I've asked you to and I paid you back by leading you on and insulting you rather than admit that I've started to fall for you too."

That's about when I stopped breathing.

"You changed a lot this year," she continued, still holding my gaze fiercely with her own. "I'm not vain enough to think that it was all for me, but I do know that it was at least in part for me. And I want you to know that I really have noticed. I've don't a shite job of showing it but I noticed and I appreciate it more than I can say.

"But until you finally called me out for playing with you, I never realized that for a long time _I've_ been the one who didn't deserve _you_." She paused, and the room started to spin as though her voice was the only thing keeping me anchored down. "After we fought, I broke up with Ben. I won't pretend that I think that's enough to make up for the way I've treated you but I want you to know I'm trying to be the type of girl you deserve."

After holding my eyes with hers for several long seconds more, Lily finally allowed her gaze to drop to her lap. I knew she was waiting for me to say something but I couldn't find the words. Again, my mind was still sluggishly working its way through her speech, struggling to understand a concept that seemed as unlikely as Snivellus one day protecting my offspring: Lily cares about…me? No. No matter how much I'd hoped for that outcome it felt too sudden and perfect to be anything but a particularly torturous dream.

"I don't want to intrude on your holiday any more," Lily said to her hands, the confident, blazing woman I'd seen just a few moments before retreating. "I just wanted to tell you what I feel, and now I've done that, so I'm just gonna go," she said, standing up. "Please apologize to your mother but I really shouldn't stay." She bolted for the door, pulling on her jacket as she went.

I was hearing the front door open when I realized she was leaving.

"Bloody hell," I cursed myself and flew down the hallway, forgetting to close the door as I followed her out into the snow.

"Lily, wait!" I called, just as she was reaching the gate. "Wait!" I grabbed her shoulder and pulled her around to face me. I startled to see those gorgeous emerald eyes that I'd doodled so many times, never fully capturing their warmth and life, were now full of tears.

Gently, I wiped them away then tilted her chin up until she was forced to meet my eyes. "Please stay," I whispered, fascinated by the way her eyelashes caught snowflakes, making her eyes sparkle even brighter in the moonlight.

"That was probably the best apology I've ever heard in my life," I told her. "So I won't even attempt to apologize for losing my temper with you or for being such an arse for the majority of the past seven years. Can we call it even?"

Lily nodded, smiling tentatively, a gesture I returned with a huge grin of my own.

"Now," I continued, hoping she couldn't hear my heart racing in anticipation. "More importantly, at long last, Lily Evans, will you _please_ do me the honor of _finally_ going on a date with me?"

Letting out a strangled laugh through her tears, Lily threw her arms around my neck in a hug, my arms wrapping their way around her waist. "I thought you'd never ask," she said into my ear.

And that's when I kissed her.

o.0.o

I woke with a hazy feeling of bliss. I reached down and gently scratched the top of Suze's head, eliciting a rare purr from her, as I tried to recapture my dream before it slipped away.

It was about Lily, as my good dreams so often are. She came to visit me at home and we were in the sitting room, talking, which was strange because I was sure I'd never dreamt that before. I rolled onto my side, furrowing my brow as I tried to remember. Out of the corner of my eye I registered snow piled up on my windowsill.

_Snow_. Lily and I kissing in the snow.

Intermingled feelings of joy and anxiety swept through me as the 'dream' came back to me. But it wasn't a dream at all. Lily had come to see me, she'd told me that she cared about me too, and I'd kissed her. And she'd kissed me back and, I know I may sound cocky, but I'm pretty sure it was the best kiss in the history of kisses. If someone somehow knew all the kisses since the beginning of people and decided to rank them, this would have to be in the top ten. Easily.

After we'd had dinner, we trimmed the tree and we kept intentionally brushing each others hands when Mum wasn't looking, then with Mum's help I'd convinced her to stay…_which meant she was here now_! In my house!

I bolted out of bed and was halfway to the door when I realized I had no idea what I was doing. Glancing at my watch I saw that it wasn't even seven yet, and my knowledge of Lily informed me that without classes to go to Lily would not be awake for another hour at least. Glancing at my disheveled appearance in the mirror, I decided the least I could do was clean myself up before she woke.

I crept down the hallway and into the bathroom with a lack of sound any Marauder would be proud of. I decided to take a long shower to give myself time to relive the previous day. The guest bedroom had its own bathroom attached so I could take as long as I needed without inconveniencing Lily.

_It's Christmas_, I thought suddenly, stopping halfway through rubbing myself down with a bar of soap. I imagined telling a much younger James that he would one day wake up on Christmas morning so excited about some girl that he forgot about his favorite holiday and laughed to myself.

_What would it be like to have Lily? To finally be able to say that I loved her every day without her freezing up or yelling at me? To tuck her hair behind her ear or hold her hand? To get to kiss her—albeit when Mum wasn't around?_ I tried to recall the easy friendship Lily and I had built this year so far, but I felt like an entirely different person possessing the knowledge that at least some portion of the love I felt for Lily was mutual. I could live forever on that knowledge.

Unable to wait any longer, I shut the water off and quickly dressed. I listened at Lily's door but I didn't hear anything so I assumed she was still sleeping. Returning to my room, I dug through the rubbish on the bottom of my trunk until I found an old antique silver mirror.

"Padfoot!" I called into it, trying to be relatively quiet. "Pads! C'mon mate, wake up!"

I faintly heard some banging on Sirius' side of the mirror and waited as his half asleep face came into focus. "Wazzamatter?" he mumbled.

"Nothing!" I said gleefully! "Nothing could ever be the matter again!"

I took the blank stare on Sirius' end to mean that he was waiting on tenterhooks for me to continue.

"Lily's here!" That got a start out of him. "She came to see me yesterday and she apologized for using me and said she'd just been scared to admit that she was starting to fall for me and then I asked her out and then _she said __**yes**_ and then I kissed her and SHE DIDN'T SLAP ME!"

I panted. Sirius stared at me in disbelief. "You're sure this wasn't another of your frighteningly-vivid, oh-so-perfect, must've-really-happened-in-another-life, Lily dreams?" he asked.

I shook my head, confident. "Nope. But you don't have to believe me, you can see for yourself when you come over for brunch later!" I tossed the mirror carelessly on my bed and floated down the stairs, retracing my steps to the sitting room to until everyone else woke up.

Sitting on the couch, making friends with a highly contented Suze, was Lily. _I guess Mum was right about people you love always surprising you_, I thought, wondering if pleasant dreams had woken her too. Her back was to the door and she didn't hear me enter so I stood still and watched her, considering that perhaps Sirius was right and that I was dreaming. But then, that would mean that it wasn't really Sirius who told me I was dreaming but my subconscious version of Sirius, and I didn't think my subconscious would be so cruel as to sew doubt into a few blessed minutes of happiness, however imaginary, meaning that I wasn't dreaming at all.

Lily looked like something on a Christmas card, the morning sunlight from the window making her hair gleam brilliantly against the dark green of the tree. I didn't want to disturb the beautiful moment so I backed out of the room and to the bottom of the stairs from which I made a point of walking loudly down the hallway so she would hear me coming.

This time when I entered Lily was looking up, expecting me.

"Hi," she said shyly, smiling.

"Hey," I answered, suddenly shy myself. "Happy Christmas!"

She grinned, "You too."

I circled to the front of the couch slowly, as though she were a timid animal I could frighten away. I realized it would take a while for me to adjust to the idea of Lily and I being together, to fully convince myself that this wasn't an extremely elaborate and elongated dream.

Sitting down, I reached over to stroke Lily's cheek and was relieved to feel her actually there and smiling at me, glad to be there. It seemed odd in some ways, to be so timid now after all the passion and excitement of finally being together the previous night, but also right somehow. Yes, we'd known each other for years and yes, we'd become very close in the previous few months, but this was uncharted territory. I'd dated a few girls at various times—I was a teenage boy after all, and obviously Lily had dated O'Leary and I assumed a muggle boy or two from home, but no girl I'd ever met even held a candle to what I felt for Lily, and given how much she'd opened up to me over the past for months as well as the night before, I don't think it's arrogance talking when I say that the way Lily felt for me was a new kind of animal too.

Almost as though she was reading my thoughts, Lily reached over and gently touched my face in return, a gesture that somehow managed to be both innocent and achingly sensual.

"I can't even begin to tell you how glad I am you came," I told her.

She grinned. "It's a pretty good choice from where I'm sitting too," she said. "Would've been a pretty lonely Christmas morning in the Head's Common Room."

I cringed at the memory of the last time we'd been there. "Sorry about the lamp," I said lamely. "And the side tables," I added.

"I thought we called it even last night?" she said, and I grinned in appreciation.

"Yeah, I think we did." I leaned over and kissed her, mesmerized again by the seeming impossibility of the moment, the softness of her lips and the silkiness of her hair and I ran my hand through it. Kissing Lily was so much better than even I could have imagined.

Finally we separated to breathe, but I kept my hand tangled in the hair at the back of her neck, holding her close. I was startled to feel her hands curled in my hair, doing the same thing. _When had that happened?_ I wondered vaguely.

"Did I mention that I'm really glad you're here?" I asked, leaning my forehead against hers.

Lily chuckled, but it was a deeper, throatier laugh than I was used to, one I realized I'd never heard before. It sent shivers down my spine in a highly _not_ unpleasant way. "You may have," she whispered. "But you're welcome to continue to do so as often as you choose."

I let out a huge laugh of joy and pulled her into my arms, standing up and twirling her around easily before placing her gently back on the ground and kissing her again. Maybe it was rash, maybe it was stupid, maybe I was risking losing everything, but I was so blindly happy in the moment that the words were out before I had a chance to second guess myself. "I love you, Lily Evans," I said, fiercely holding her gaze with my own.

I'd said it before, so many times that I doubt Lily could remember when I'd first confessed by love for her (I do, we were on the Hogwarts Express heading to Hogwarts for the first time and she'd just looked at me with disgust before walking away), but regardless of the number of times it felt like this was the first time I'd truly meant it because for the first time I wasn't trying to convince her of anything, just stating a fact.

What I wasn't expecting was her response.

"And I love you, James Potter," she said calmly, clearly, but very fully aware of the weight of that statement for me. All I could do was stare at her in response. She chuckled again, wrapping her arms around my waist and tucking her head beneath my chin, sighing contentedly. Instinctively I hugged her back and pulled us back down onto the couch, still speechless as Lily curled up in my lap, a much better cuddler than the thoroughly offended Suze who was glaring at us from the other end of the coach, clearly feeling abandoned.

"Still in shock?" Lily teased as I stroked her hair.

Somehow I managed to make my voice sound calm as I answered. "No, just trying to affix this moment exactly into my memory," I told her.

"We'll have more memories," Lily said comfortably. "If you haven't realized yet, I'm pretty stubborn once I've set my mind to something."

It was my turn to laugh. "Oh yes. I've noticed," I said. "I have six and a half years experience with your stubbornness. Does that mean it'll take me another six and a half years to get rid of you?" I joked.

"Hey!" Lily sat up in mock indignation, poking me in the ribs, rather painfully I might add. She made as if to get up but I just pulled her even closer, burying my face in her hair.

"Don't worry," I said. "I don't intend to let you go anywhere for much longer than six years."

Lily sighed dramatically. "Suits me," she said, twisting to peck me on the lips before settling back down into my arms. "I'm pretty comfortable at the moment."

We sat in contented silence for several minutes—and probably could have stayed there for hours—but we were interrupted by the sound of my mother descending the stairs. Jumping, Lily started to extricate herself from the tangle of my arms. I grumbled in annoyance but relinquished all but one hand which I kept wrapped in both of mine.

"Happy Christmas!" Mum said as she came in, smiling knowingly at our intertwined fingers.

"Happy Christmas, Mrs. Potter," Lily responded.

"Happy Christmas, Mum," I echoed, standing and giving Mum a hug.

"You kids been up long?" She asked.

"Just a few minutes longer than you," I answered evenly. "Can we open presents now?" I asked childishly. Lily chuckled and Mum responded in the affirmative.

The morning passed contentedly. Lily was truly at her best: charming and sweet and funny and everything that I love most about her. By the time everyone arrived later in the afternoon you would have thought that she was Mum's child rather than me. The easy way they related to one another was the best Christmas gift I could have gotten, and yes, I do realize how absurdly corny that sounds.

The next best not-a-real-'gift'-but-so-much-better Christmas gift I got was the looks on Sirius and Toinette's faces when they arrived to see Lily and I sitting together on the couch with our fingers intertwined. Despite our brief conversation in the morning, my best friend's jaw dropped almost to the floor when he saw us before he galloped over and pulled Lily into a back breaking hug, swinging her in a circle and declaring them family now. Toinette was much subtler. She beamed at me, shaking her head in wonderment and—once Sirius had relinquished his hold—gave Lily a much more civilized hug.

As I lay in my bed later that evening it occurred to me that I could quite happily spend every Christmas for the rest of my life like this one.

o.0.o

The days passed quickly over the remaining days of break. Mum went back to work only two days after Christmas, determined as always to bury herself in her career. For once, I didn't mind as it meant hours upon hours of spending time with Lily.

Lily in the snow was a marvel. I'd seen her and her friends on the grounds of Hogwarts many times through the years of course, but this was the first time she let me into her personal winter world. I'd always considered myself a summer child, reveling in the endless heat and long days of July and August, but Lily showed me how incredibly flawless and breathtaking the winter months could be.

We spent hours in the gardens, chasing one another around bushes and garden furniture, lobbing snowballs and laughing hysterically. I showed her the tree fort my father and I built together and she explained the concept of snow angels to me, some silly muggle tradition of flopping in the snow and rolling around a bit. If we tired we'd lie together in my hammock on the porch, huddled together against the cold and marveled at the glistening white branches of the trees that seemed to grasp yearningly at the clouds in the sky. When I finally couldn't take the cold anymore—Lily never once complained of the chill—we'd tromp our way indoors and curl by the fire, playing Exploding Snap and Wizards Chess or just sitting together, reading or chatting as we pleased.

Much to Glads initial displeasure, one of Lily's hobbies that I'd never known was baking. It took some cajoling and many promises to never intrude upon his cooking duties, but eventually Glads relinquished control of the kitchen to Lily's culinary talents. And we were all glad when he did. If Lily hadn't been a witch, there isn't a doubt in my mind she could have opened one of those fancy muggle bakeries and been wildly successful. She confessed once during one of her many disastrous attempts to teach me how to bake that she had often considered trying to open a wizarding bakery in Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley in the past, but that was before the war.

As perfect and peaceful as our days were, the war was always there, a nasty shadow lurking in a dark corner of the room. Naggingly present, but infuriatingly impossible to do anything about. Mum tried to be cheery when she came home at the end of each day but I knew her too well not to notice the bags under her eyes, however carefully concealed, and the haunted gaze she laid upon me when she thought I wasn't looking, a gaze that said all too clearly how worried she was for my future and how poorly the war effort was going.

It was in this happy yet grim atmosphere that we prepared for the annual Potter New Years party and one of Lily and my last days of break.

"Mrs. Potter," a massive vase of white pointsettias with Lily's voice said. "Where do you want these flowers?"

"That big one on the table in the foyer, please, and the rest wherever you think they'll look nice," Mum said without looking away from the faintly glowing vines she was conjuring to grow out of the wood of the staircase banister. "And Lily dear, how many times do I have to ask you to call me Elena?"

With a resounding thump, Lily deposited the vase on the table. Her face was beat red as she appeared from behind the flowers but she kept the embarrassment out of her voice as she retorted, "At least a few dozen more times, Mrs. Potter." Mum just chuckled as Lily moved to make her exit.

I grabbed her hand as she passed and pulled her abruptly into the dining room where I had been setting out stacks of plates and silverware for the buffet. Pressing Lily silently against the wall, I ran my nose up the side of her neck, inhaling that wonderful Lily-smell and smiling to myself when I heard the rapid increase in her heartbeat. "Have I ever told you how incredibly sexy you are when you blush?" I whispered into her ear.

"James, your mom is in the next room!" she whispered back in protest, but the shuddering of her body as I kissed my way along her jaw line and the weak and completely ineffectual shove she gave my chest gave away how little that protestation meant to her.

I pulled away just far enough to look into her eyes and press a finger to her lips. She held my gaze firmly until we heard Mum's footsteps receding towards the kitchen. "See? Nothing to worry about," I murmured as I resumed my thorough examination of the pale, soft skin of her neck, my hands slipping smoothly down her body to rest contentedly on her hips.

"You're incorrigible," Lily muttered back, but she arched her back into me, exposing more neck and once again contradicting her words with her body.

Same as every other day since Christmas, everywhere our body's met was fire. I'd been cautious with her in our blissful vacation together, always pulling back from kisses first so as not to push her away, but it became harder and harder every day as I continued to fall more deeply in love with this incredible girl who was now slipping her hands under my shirt to trace tantalizing patterns on the small of my back. When our lips finally met I had to place a hand on the wall next to her head to support the two of us as Lily's body melted into mine. Surely this was worth any amount of years of pursuit.

Eventually, breathlessly, we pulled apart, eyes dark with lust despite our gasps for air. I found myself wondering how any two people could possibly have so much passion between them. With a groan I rolled my body away so that I was leaning on the wall next to her, all contact broken except one hand wrapped in mine, in the hope that some distance would keep me from throwing her onto the dining room table and ripping every scrap of clothing off her body.

"Merlin, woman," I muttered in a ragged voice, turning my head to gaze at her disheveled profile. "You're bloody incredible."

"You're none to shabby yourself, Potter," Lily agreed grinning at me, and tugging my hand towards her for a chaste peck on the lips that would have turned into another full out snog if it weren't for the interruption of a chastising voice.

"If you two are quite finished, James still needs to set up the lights in the garden and they you both need to get changed before the guests begin arriving."

The red Lily had been a few minutes before couldn't hold a candle to the brilliant shade of magenta that immediately flushed her face as she turned gasping to look at my mother, who was trying very hard to maintain her stern facial expression. Despite her best efforts to extricate herself from my grip, I wrapped my arms firmly around her waist, her back to my chest.

"Aw, Mum," I whined over Lily's incoherent stuttering. "We were just taking a little break. You're working us like house elves." I ignored a skeptical grunt from the hall as a walking coat rack seemed to pass by. "No offence Glads," I called, chuckling.

Even Elena Potter couldn't hold her stoic expression at that and gave into the grin that had been tugging at her features. "Thirty minutes, James," she managed sternly. "You have thirty minutes to get those lights in the garden and then I want you upstairs doing something about that hair." I ran a hand through my hair defensively. She smiled affectionately at Lily. "You take your time with the flowers, Lily. You look lovely as is so you won't need as much work at that ruffian who claims to be my son."

"Thank you Mrs. Potter," Lily said to her shoes, clearly still embarrassed.

"Elena," Mum called over her shoulder as she turned and walked back to the kitchen.

I planted a light kiss on Lily's cheek. "Yup, that blush is as sexy as ever," I said.

"James," Lily whined, this time actually putting some effort into her attempts to break free and eventually succeeding. "That was absolutely mortifying!"

"Just imagine if she'd walked in two minutes earlier." And I left that comment hanging as I walked outside to conjure up some lights.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I was chatting with Abelotta Bungard, a fellow auror with Mum and a favorite to become Minister of Magic when Lily descended the stairs.

She had chosen to attend the party in muggle clothing, as a few other guests had done, but no one looked half as stunning as Lily in a fitted strapless gold dress that stopped just above her knees, and flaunted every curve of her body that my hands knew so well by now. Her hair had been pulled up into a knot high on the top of her head, showing off the elegant bones of her face, collar and shoulders. I excused myself from Abelotta to meet the love of my life at the foot of the staircase.

Lily smiled widely when she saw me and placed her hand in mine when I held it out, helping her down the last few steps. "You are easily the most beautiful woman in this room," I whispered, leaning in.

She opened her eyes wide in mock surprise. "What a coincidence, cause you're definitely the most handsome man," she said with a wink.

"Well that hurts, Lily flower," interrupted a familiar voice from behind us. "And here I thought we had real potential."

We turned eagerly to greet Sirius and Toinette, who was looking breathtaking as well in a shimmery silver dress that draped all the way to the floor, though I didn't like how loosely it hung over her bony hips.

"You been sneaking around behind my back, boy?" Toinette demanded, giving Sirius a vicious poke between the ribs.

Sirius grunted but managed to paste on a thoroughly unconvincing grin as he exclaimed in what was quite definitely not an inside voice, "I would never! How could you accuse me of such blasphemy, Toinette darling, my flower, my pearl, my divine goddess of pain!"

Toinette snorted at that last term of endearment, but gave him a forgiving peck nonetheless. "Come with me," she said to all three of us. "I snagged a few bottles of fire whiskey from the stash for the kids party."

"I guess that makes us kids," I murmured to Lily as I grasped her hand in mine and pulled her after Toinette and Sirius' retreating backs.

"When weren't we?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"So you really never heard of a snow angel before either?" Lily slurred at Sirius, pointing the mouth of a bottle of fire whiskey at him. "And here I though James just lived under some stupid rock."

Sirius shrugged. "Never!" he declared triumphantly. "But I'm gonna say that stupid rock is called magic though."

Lily blushed. "You at least have the excuse of not being in Muggle Studies with us," she conceded.

"That I do!" Sirius declared, raising his glass in the air. "To Muggle Studies!"

"Muggle Studies!" We all chorused.

"I know you've explained them to me a million times, Lily," Toinette commented, flopping down on the couch so that her head rested in Sirius' lap and spilling copious amounts of fire whiskey while she was at it. "But I still don't really get the point. Plus it just gets ruined when you stand up anyways."

"But that's just cause you're always too impatient to do it right!" Lily sputtered indignantly. "When you're finished you have to have someone pull you up so you don't step in the middle of your angel." She looked flabbergasted as we all continued to stare at her blankly. "Here, I'll show you. James, hold this," she said, thrusting her bottle of fire whiskey into my hands.

I grumbled as she crawled out of my embrace and into the middle of the room but it quickly fell away into stunned silence as the dignified, glorious creature I had been so mesmerized with as she descended the staircase plopped onto her back and began to flap her arms and legs in imaginary snow.

"So you go like this," Lily continued, unperturbed by the spectacle she was making of herself. "And when you're done," she froze. "You hold up your hands," her hands shot straight up towards the ceiling. "And you lock your knees as someone pulls you up." After a beat she snapped her head towards me with an expectant look.

"Oh, of course," I jumped unsteadily to me feet. "Someone. That'll be me, the ever obedient boy toy," I teased, but I grabbed the proffered hands anyways.

"James!" Lily exclaimed. "You're standing in my snow angel! Back up!"

The concept of someone standing in an imaginary snow angel was too much for Sirius and Toinette who erupted into laughter as I penitently stepped back and pulled her up to her feet, catching her when she stumbled.

Wrapping her arms firmly around my waist, Lily lifted her chin to look at my face. "I love you, James Potter," she said, matter of fact.

"I love you, Lily Evans," I answered evenly, amazed at how much meaning could be expressed in so few words.

I don't know how long we stood there, content to just stare at one another, but somewhere in the back of my mind I heard people counting down and realized it was almost midnight.

"Come on, guys!" Toinette exclaimed, grabbing my hand and tugging us outside, Sirius being dragged by her other arm. "The fireworks!"

They were already on seven when we got outside and stared expectantly up at the sky.

"SIX!"

I snaked an arm around Lily's waist, pulling her close to my side.

"FIVE!"

I grinned at Sirius as he similarly pulled Toinette into his chest.

"FOUR!"

We joined in the countdown, our intoxicated bellows drowning out the rest of the also fairly inebriated revelers.

"THREE!"

I wondered if I would ever feel as happy as I did in that moment with my friends and my love at my side.

"TWO!"

I decided that no, it quite definitely didn't get any better than this.

"ONE!"

Unable to help myself, I turned in to kiss Lily before the countdown had officially ended, sighing in satisfaction as she returned my kiss with equal vigor.

I didn't hear them say zero and I didn't notice the firework display shooting across the heavens, I was more than content with the perfect, redheaded woman in my arms.

Step 9 was utterly unnecessary.

A/N: Anyone else really excited for Christmas now?


	11. Chapter 11

Author's Note: I'm thinking of trying to write something original, but I don't know if I'll be able to stick with a story if I'm not posting it somewhere where I can get feedback and know that people are interested in hearing what comes next. Anyone know a site for posting original stories instead of fan fiction?

Ch. 11

_Step 10: Never expect her to ask me out. [January 5__th__-18__th__]_

While I'll be the first to tell you that Lily and I have had some majorly tension filled moments of many varieties, I'd never fully understood the phrase 'you could cut the tension with a knife' until we reentered our Common Room for the first time after break.

The broken lamp and table were repaired and back in place—though I couldn't tell you if it had been Lily's work or the house elves'. Everything looked more or less the same as it had all year, but we were suddenly two entirely different people with a much different relationship, thrown back into an old haunt like an adult trying to fit into his childhood jumper. I was hyper aware of Lily's breathing, could hear her heart beating as though my ear was pressed against her chest, and although I couldn't see her hands, I felt the tiny twitch of her pinky finger through my entire body.

Certainly we'd spent a lot of time alone together over break, but without even realizing it, we were always on good behavior, distantly aware of the fact that we were still in my mother's house. Plus there'd been Glads, who I'm sure my mother had had reporting back to her about our every move. But here, we had our own space, reserved just for us. We were really and truly alone.

On my honor as a Marauder, I couldn't tell you who reached for who first, but one second Lily and I were frozen just inside the portrait hole, a very tense foot of air between us, and the next our bodies smashed together in what was most likely a highly painful collision, but I was far too preoccupied with the feeling of Lily's lips on mine to notice.

With all the enthusiasm of a young wizard's first trip to Honeydukes, my hands raced their way across every plane of her body: cheeks, shoulders, bum, neck, arms, breasts, the small of her back, the sides of her thighs, the protrusion of her hip bones and shoulder blades, my own body shuddering in pleasure as her hands conducted a similar survey. We slammed into one wall and then the opposite, our charged bodies unable to stay in one place.

Lily let out a soft mewling sound as I pinned her against one wall with my hips and tore my lips from hers to burrow my face into the warmth of her neck. "You know," she gasped out. "If someone had told me that we'd end up doing this after I told you what my type was, I'd have laughed myself silly. I knew some amusing"—gasp—"antics would ensue, but never"—gasp—"this."

A deep chuckle rumbled its way out of my chest. "It's funny you should mention that," I murmured, my lips brushing one of her exquisite collarbones. "I suppose I ought to tell you that I made a whole schedule for proving to you that we were perfect based on that conversation. My last valiant attempt to woo you." I trailed kisses all the way down one arm to her fingertips before looking up mischievously. "I just never dreamed it would work this well."

Lily's hands fisted into the fabric of my shirt, yanking my mouth up to meet hers in a kiss that was as rough and demanding as it was loving. "It couldn't have been all that hard," she said between kisses. "The main reason I didn't want to tell you my type was because you're pretty exactly it." She pushed me playfully, turning us about so that now my back was pressed against the wall. I heard a portrait crash to the floor but was too distracted by Lily kissed her way along my jaw line to check the damage.

"Ugh," I said sarcastically. "Are you _really_ saying I'm similar to O'Learey?" I teased.

Lily gave me a sharp pinch in the side, chuckling. "You have to admit at least on the outside the two of you have more than a couple similar attributes. Not that he's half the man you are," she said.

"Good." I muttered petulantly into her hair.

Lily laughed again, the most beautiful sound, and stepped back, gripping my hands in hers to pull me with her as she approached the couch. "The only reason I dated him the first time around was to piss you off," she said as the backs of her knees collided with the arm rest and she flopped down—rather gracefully I might add—onto the plush couch cushions, yanking me down on top of her. "The second was because I really thought you only wanted to be my friend and that made me unbearably lonely."

The carefully disguised hurt in her voice made me pull back far enough to look her in the eyes. "Lily," I said firmly, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. "There has never been a day since I met you when I only wanted to be your friend." I kissed the tip of her nose. "You just didn't seem to want to hear it so I stopped saying so."

"I guess you could say I've been in denial for a decent chunk of time," Lily said, shooting me a glare when I snorted at the vast understatement. "It just took the possibility of really losing you to shake some sense into me. Promise to always tell one another the truth from now on?"

"I can work with that," I said.

"Good." Lily answered, gently stroking a finger from my brow to the tip of my chin.

"Let's see," I mused. "The truth…" I kissed her, musing on what truths I wanted to tell her. "That time I dumped Stinksap on you in third year? I was just trying to get your attention," I told her.

Lily raised an eyebrow at me, silently accepting my challenge. "I spent a week attempting to flirt with Sirius to get under your skin," she said, laughing. "I think he was too confused by me speaking to him to understand what I was doing."

I made a mental note to ask Padfoot about that later. "I spray my pillow with a bottle of your honeysuckle body spray I stole 4th year," I said.

"I became veritably obsessed with catching you at pranks," Lily countered. "I was obsessed, driving Toinette crazy theorizing on how you kept getting away with things."

"I've been drinking peppermint tea for four years even though it tastes like Skelegrow in the hopes that you'd notice and feel connected to me."

"Rosalie hates me because I can't help myself from being rude to her ever since the first night when you flirted with her."

"I've been taking the advice of eleven-year-olds as to how to properly woo you."

"That day in the Owlry when you cut your hand I wanted to kiss you."

"The night you fell asleep in my window seat, listening to me play piano, I thought about kissing you awake just to see what you would do."

"The next morning when I woke up in your bed I was blissfully happy until I remembered that I wasn't supposed to ever want to be anywhere near your bed."

"It's not a coincidence we have all the same classes. I stole your schedule and signed up for the same ones."

"I think I've loved you since you locked that poor boy in a broom cupboard. It's probably the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me."

"I've written seventeen songs about you, they're much better than my attempts at poetry."

"When you told that Johnny that you would never get caught doing a prank like his, I was incredibly proud of you."

"I made you angry on purpose all the time just because I never felt as alive as when you screamed at me."

"Sometimes, when I'm having a really bad day, I go way out of my way to bump into you because fighting with you always boosted my self esteem."

"I spent hours under my invisibility cloak following you and Toinette around the grounds to get a picture of you smiling."

"I've been having wildly inappropriate dreams about you since October."

"I've been keeping count. You've rejected me 2,713 times."

There was a pause as Lily contemplated this absurd number, and I feared I'd ruined our playful banter, scared her away with my obsession.

But with a pout that was far more shiver-inducing than any such childish a face should be, Lily slipped her hands under my shirt to race along my spine. "Alright you win," she said. "I'll just have to make it up to you 2,714 times," she whispered into my ear. "Though if it makes you feel any better, Toinette's been convinced I liked you since the middle of 6th year."

"Interesting," I said against her lips. "Maybe that's why she said no." Lily raised a questioning eyebrow and I continued. "I seem to recall trying to blackmail Toinette into spiking your pumpkin juice with Amortentia sixth year. She must've known I was close to succeeding on my own'"

"Or!" Lily exclaimed. "My best friend was trying to protect my freedom of judgment!"

"Sure, sure," I answered, burying my fingers in her hair. "But said freedom of judgment was highly flawed and therefore not in need of protecting."

"James!" Lily squealed indignantly. She gave my shoulder a shove, pushing me onto the floor, but I wrapped my arms firmly around her waist, yanking her down with me.

I was sure the entire castle heard the thump when we landed on the floor but I took advantage of Lily's momentary shock to flip her over onto her back, elbows on either side of head. "Yes?" I drawled, enjoying her frustration at being pinned against her will.

"You don't really mean that," she answered, half statement, half challenge.

Instead of answering I brought my lips down to meet hers, chuckling to myself as she first tried to pull away, but eventually gave up and kissed me back. "Of course not," I finally responded. "I much prefer you wanting my company."

"Well good," Lily answered evenly. "Because I very much want you right here." She flipped me onto my back again, ignoring the crash of a table and lamp toppling over as feet crashed into it. "Those days around Quiddich try-outs when you were avoiding me were the worst of my year," she said quietly, her eyes suddenly wide and innocent.

My breath caught in my throat. "They were some of mine too," I told her honestly. "Second only to the night Remus attacked you." Lily shuddered at the memory.

"Although that was simultaneously one of the best nights of my life," I said. "The way you looked at me—well, Prongs—it was the first time I'd ever seen you completely let your guard down." I trailed away in the memory. For a moment I had forgotten how much danger she was in, too mesmerized by something so akin to love that I'd seen in her green, green eyes. "Course, you didn't _know_ it was me," I said with an attempt at a smirk that must have been more of a grimace because Lily sat up, pulling me with her and weaving her fingers through mine with a possessiveness that surprised me.

"You saved my life that night," she said, all seriousness. A second later, as though a new thought had suddenly occurred to her, she blushed scarlet and her eyes shot down to her fingers entwined with mine.

"What is it?" I asked, tilting her chin up to look me in the eyes.

I don't know what I expected in her face when she looked up, but it definitely wasn't the guilty and tantalizingly seductive grin she was giving me.

"That night," she started, her eyes blazing into mine. "When you transformed into a human, it took me a moment to get over the shock of realizing you were an animagus of course, but then I saw you. All of you." Lily leaned forward then and pressed her lips gently to mine. It was a long, lingering kiss, a kiss for people who have years to spend together, a kiss that promises many more to come. I didn't even notice her sliding my shirt up my body until she stopped kissing me to pull it off. My head swam as she ran her hands down my ribs, tracing scars from various fights with Moony. Finally she brought her gaze back up to me, a smirk dominating her features. "And to be honest, if Remus hadn't come out of the woods at exactly that moment, I probably would have been attacking you myself."

"Attacking, Miss Evans?" I asked, my voice getting embarrassingly high pitched as I tried to maintain my composure. "That sounds violent."

Lily grinned. "It is," she answered, tackling me to the floor once again.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The news of Lily and my relationship spread faster than hell fire. I expected the school to be shocked and amazed, but it took no more than a day for students to stop gaping at our entwined hands in the hallways. For all my bravado, maybe everyone else had been way more aware of Lily falling for me than I had.

My first year friends—who I was getting more fond of by the week—certainly weren't surprised with my success, but perhaps a bit by the means.

"So let me get this straight," Johnny said over breakfast. He made a comic image, spoonful of porridge frozen halfway to his mouth as he stared at me. "You screamed like a bloody Howler at the girl and _now_ she agrees to date you?"

Sam chuckled and Meredith rolled her eyes.

I pursed my lips in thought. "Well, yeah. That's pretty much what happened."

"Women," said Johnny with a disparaging shake of his head.

"It's not that he yelled at her, you wonker," Meredith said. "It's because he was honest."

"Yeah the whole school's known that they were perfect for each other for ages," Sam cut in. "And obviously James is a huge catch, Lily just needed a little reality check that he wouldn't wait around forever."

"Though I probably would've," I added pathetically under my breath.

"I still say it's bonkers," said Johnny with a thoughtful bite of bacon. "But I'm glad you're happy," he added with a nod in my direction.

Seeing Lily approaching out of the corner of my eye, I quickly changed the subject. "So what were you lot up to over break?"

"Johnny just played video games with his brothers," Sam said bitterly. "Left us poor females to practice our Quiddich passes all by ourselves."

I vaguely remembered video games being mentioned in Muggle Studies. But I also remember Lily braiding and unbraiding her hair about 8 times that class so I was a little distracted. As I recall they're something like our portraits but you can control what they do. Of course, Padfoot and I jinxed all the portraits to sing lewd love songs to passerby for Valentine's 5th year, so I suppose we can do that too.

"You're from a muggle family then?" I asked Johnny, surprised. He never seemed to be caught off guard by the magical world compared to other muggle born students I knew.

"Muggle parents and four muggle older brothers," he answered with a shrug, not meeting my eyes.

"You know, Lily's from a non-magic family," I told him gently.

"What were you saying about me?" Lily slid onto the bench next to me and pecked me on the cheek. I prayed no one would notice the excited flush creeping up my neck.

"I was just telling Johnny he should be proud to have muggle parents like you."

Lily smiled at him, resting a hand on my knee under the table. "He's right, there's nothing embarrassing about having muggle relatives. We just have a bit more catching up to do at first."

Johnny pushed his porridge around his bowl halfheartedly. "It's not wizards I'm worried about," he said darkly. "But you should meet my brother."

Though confused at the sudden change in topic, I was about to say that I would be happy to meet him when I felt Lily tense next to me. "Jealous?" she asked with a wistfulness in her voice that seemed out of context for the conversation.

Johnny's eyes flashed up to Lily's with surprise and recognition. "Yeah, how'd you—"

"Mine too," Lily said with sympathy. "My sister Petunia is," she paused. "We used to be much closer." She held his gaze for several long moments while some painful understanding I couldn't touch passed between them.

I'd always dreamed of having a sibling when I was younger, sometimes a sister, sometimes a brother, it didn't matter to me, just someone to share all the innocent childhood memories. But watching Lily and Johnny, I was almost glad I was my parents' only child. The closest I had to a sister was Toinette—which admittedly is a hell of a lot closer than most only children have, but still not quite the same. I tried to imagine if she'd been a squib and my gut clenched in guilt, not only for the jealousy she would have no choice but to feel towards me, but worse, from knowing that I would be as distant from her as if we didn't share blood. That even if it were possible for her to be selfless enough _not_ to resent what I had and couldn't share with her, I would still always be separated from her. It was excruciating. Trying to imagine such an experience if Toinette and I were even _closer_ was a pain I quite literally couldn't fathom.

Looking at Lily's defeated posture as she picked at her eggs, I felt the conversation I'd had with Mum the first night of break filter back to me. She'd told me people were too complex to put into words, that they had to be discovered. But I was beginning to realize that her comforting words might have been the hugest understatement of my life.

It wasn't just people that were beyond description. I thought I'd suffered true pain from longing for Lily over the past few years, but I had only been longing for something I'd imagined. Something wonderful, but something that I was beginning to understand was so much better than I'd ever dreamed. But like people, pain was so much more than the surface scratched by your first heartbreak. I'd thought there was a limit to hurting, just as I'd thought there would come a day when I would know Lily's soul more deeply than I knew my own. But pain was bigger than that, beautiful in a cruel way, because just when you thought you'd hit the glass ceiling and you couldn't contain any more hurt, it spread sideways, encompassing and mingling with others' pain until it felt less like suffering and more like companionship.

I had an inkling that love must be the same. Because I could see that Lily loved Petunia despite the coldness between them, and Mum loved Da even though he'd had to leave her alone, and I loved Lily through the many times she'd turned me down. I could sense and share the burden of their pain, so compatible it was with my own hurts and losses, but I could also share their love, because _I_ loved them. It became achingly clear that despite the number of times I'd publicly and privately declared my love for her, I hadn't even touched upon the kind of love Lily and I were capable of, the kind of unconditional love my parents had shared and that so many people ached for their whole lives. The possibility was as terrifying as it was exhilarating. How did people keep living under the burden of so much _feeling_?

It was with a shock—not unlike stumbling upon a bogart for the first time—that I was jerked out of my contemplative state by Sirius plopping onto the bench beside me. "Wotcher, Prongs," he said. "You look like you've discovered the cure to Scrufungulus."

I stifled an inappropriately timed laugh at the thought that I'd had an epiphany while sitting at the crowded and noisy Gryffindor table. "Just contemplating the intricately entwined natures of pain and love," I said honestly, with a blasé tone that anyone but Sirius would've thought was joking.

"She's changing you, mate," he said, nodding subtly towards Lily who was now buried in her transfiguration text, one eyebrow raised sardonically as she struggled through it. I stared at her, proud of my ability to recognize the expression but also thrilled that there was so much more to learn. There was so much more Lily to love.

Sirius sighed over dramatically at my fixation, pretending to be frustrated with me, but I knew him well enough to recognize the affection in his teasing. "I wouldn't have thought you could be any more affected by Lily but here you are," he said, tapping me on the temple. "Touched in the head."

Lily tossed the book on the table with a thunk and looked up at us. "What about me?" she asked, looking pleased to have an excuse to give up on studying.

I haven't the slightest idea what my face must have looked like, but she froze, lips parting in the most tantalizing manner.

"Lily, will you be my girlfriend?"

Well, as Step 10 instructed, I'd certainly asked her first.


End file.
